The Best American Short Stories 2001 (The Best American Series) [Paperback]

Katrina Kenison (Author), Barbara Kingsolver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2001

This year’s Best American Short Stories is edited by the critically acclaimed and best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver, whose latest book is Prodigal Summer. Kingsolver’s selections for The Best American Short Stories 2001 showcase a wide variety of new voices and masters, such as Alice Munro, Rick Moody, Dorothy West, and John Updike. “Reading these stories was both a distraction from and an anchor to the complexities of my life — my pleasure, my companionship, my salvation. I hope they will be yours.” — Barbara Kingsolver

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If the 20 stories in this year's collection have any one thing in common, it is their substance and seriousness of purpose. This is mostly a good thing entries by veteran writers like Alice Munro, John Updike and Annette Sanford, and by relative newcomers like Andrea Barrett, Barbara Klein Moss and Peter Orner are intellectually stimulating and satisfying but the inclusion of a few lighter selections might have leavened the mix. Munro is her usual magical self in "Post and Beam," in which a young Vancouver wife comes to terms with the immutability of married life. Ha Jin, in "After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town," tells of the impact an American fast food franchise in China has on both employees and customers, imparting a number of reasons why East and West will never see eye to eye. "Servants of the Map," the extraordinary novella- length story by Barrett, tells the tale of an English mapmaker in 1860s India struggling with his demanding job, loneliness and, most of all, his unquenchable desire to be a botanist. In Orner's brief tale, "The Raft," a grandfather ushers his grandson into a closet to tell him an old WWII story in a new way. Sanford's contribution short, too tells how a 16-year-old girl seemingly doing nothing for the summer is preparing for adult life. The careful character development, subtle drama and pristine prose of these selections should once again thoroughly satisfy fans of quality short fiction. $200,000 marketing campaign; sweepstakes promotion.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In his introduction to Prize Stories 2001, editor Dark notes an increase in the number of longer stories, or novellas, being published in literary journals. To reflect this trend, Dark chose to publish three longer pieces, bringing the total number of stories in this year's volume to 17 rather than the usual 20. One of these, Mary Swan's "The Deep," an absorbing account of twin sisters in the World War I era, was chosen as the best story of the year. Runners up were Dan Chaon's "Big Me" and Alice Munro's "Floating Bridge." Munro also receives a special citation for her continued notable work in the short story form. Dark writes that he was torn between Munro's above-mentioned story and her equally fine "Post and Beam;" happily, the latter appears in Best American Short Stories 2001. Kingsolver narrowed her selections by opting for only those that "tell me something I don't already know." So we get funny and intriguing views of other cultures, such as Ha Jin's "After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town," which is about the workers in an American fast-food restaurant in China; Katherine Shonk's "My Mother's Garden," set near post-disaster Chernobyl; and Trevanian's sly Basque fable, "The Apple Tree." Two well-deserving stories, Elizabeth Graver's "The Mourning Door" and Andrea Barrett's "Servants of the Map," appear in both volumes. Both volumes are valuable additions to academic and larger public libraries. Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Printing edition (October 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395926882
• ISBN-13: 978-0395926888
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #423,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Graver is at work on a project titled Plants and Their Children, a novel set in a summer community on Buzzard's Bay from 1942 to 1999. She is the author of three novels: Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her short story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories (1991, 2001); Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards (1994, 1996, 2001); The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2001), and Best American Essays (1998). Her story "The Mourning Door" was awarded the Cohen Prize from Ploughshares Magazine. The mother of two daughters, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Boston College.
For more information, visit http://Elizabethgraver.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A TREASURE!, January 30, 2002

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2001 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

In her introduction to this estimable collection of short fiction, Barbara Kingsolver thanks the authors for "pieces of truth that moved me to a new understanding of the world."

I add my gratitude for 20 memorable stories, diverse in concept but united by excellence.

Arranged alphabetically by author, these tales are spare, one only four pages. All are vivified by rich narrative voices.

The opening story, "Servants Of The Map" by Andrea Barrett introduces a young 19th century surveyor struggling through the Himalayas. Ridiculed by other members of his party, he carries a small wooden trunk holding letters from his wife.

Powerful descriptions of the incapacitating cold bring chills, as does the gradual revelation that the surveyor is losing rational thought. Montana author Rick Bass imagines Kirby, a volunteer fireman so caught up in fighting fire that all else is tedium.

His marriage suffers, yet it is fire that saves this relationship. The couple's ennui, their disagreements pale beside the dangers he faces when there is a blaze. "As long as the city keeps burning," Kirby thinks, "they can avoid becoming weary and numb. Always, he leaves, is drawn away, and then returns, to a second chance."

It is Wales and D-Day once again in "Think Of England" by Peter Ho Davies. Sixteen-year-old Sarah works in a pub frequented by English soldiers who may use her.

Another unlucky in love is "Pinky," the corpulent hero in Claire Davis's "Labors Of The Heart."

For the first time in his forty plus years he falls in love. Can his affections ever be returned when he is categorized as "morbidly obese," and knows that "every movement, whether tying a shoe or climbing a short flight of stairs, becomes a labor of the heart?"

Texas writer Annette Sanford offers "Nobody Listens When I Talk," an engaging mini-portrait of a young girl who spends a summer growing up. The maturation of two brothers is lined in "Boys," a poignant cameo of family life by Rick Moody.

Bushels of laughter spark Trevanian's Basque-set story "The Apple Tree." Two village women, lifelong rivals, are next-door neighbors. While their original bone of contention had been which of them the village Romeo favored, (in truth, neither) they now square off for the fruit of an apple tree that sits on their boundary line.

When harvesting apples the women come face to face. Each picks faster and faster until one pulls a limb over to gather more fruit. When she releases the branch it hits the other woman, toppling her into a bed of leeks. Mud begins to fly.
Not only mud but verbal assaults as well: They were "Crying out every vilification that years of rivalry had stored up in their fertile imaginations, decorating one another's reputations with those biologically explicit calumnies for which the Basque language might have been specifically designed, were it not universally known that it was invented in heaven for use by the angels."

The Best American Short Stories 2001 is a treasure. Each story is a gem, but isn't that what treasures hold?

- Gail Cooke

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Large truths delivered in tight spaces.", December 28, 2001

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2001 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

Never one to avoid a good debate, 2001 Editor, Barbara Kingsolver (THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, PRODIGAL SUMMER) begins the latest installment of this "best of" series with fighting words: "From what I gather, most Americans would sooner read a five-hundred page book about southern France or a boy attending wizard school or how to make home decor from roadside trash or anything than pick up a book offering them a dozen tales of the world complete in twenty pages apiece. And I won't even discuss what they will do to avoid reading poetry" (p. xiii). Amen, Barbara, ain't it the truth. "These stories were, for me, both a distraction and an anchor," she writes. "They were my pleasure, my companionship, my salvation. I hope they will be yours" (p. xix).

This year's collection of short stories travels the world from Hollywood to Hong Kong ("After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town"), from a Welsh pub ("Think of England") to the tropics of Madagascar ("Brothers and Sisters Around the World"). Along the way, we experience amore in the grocery aisle ("Labours of the Heart"), marriage ("Post and Beam"), war ("Think of England"), the difficulties of getting pregnant ("The Mourning Door"), and the passions of fire fighters ("The Fireman"). We also encounter a 16-year-old girl wise beyond her years in "Nobody Listens when I Talk." In selecting the stories collected here, Kingsolver tells us: "I sat with this question early on and tried to divine why it is that I love a short story when I do, and the answer came to me quite clearly: I love it for what it tells me about life. If it tells me something I didn't already know, or that I maybe suspected but never framed quite that way, or that never before socked me divinely in the solar plexus, then the story is worth the read" (p. xvi).

"A good short story cannot simply be Lit Lite," Kingsolver observes in her insightful Introduction; "it is the successful execution of large truths delivered in tight spaces" (p. xviii). With contributions from writers including Rick Bass, Peter Ho Davies, Ha Jin, Rick Moody, Alice Munro, John Updike, and Dorothy West, the twenty "tight spaces" collected here reveal "large truths" indeed. As Series Editor, Katrina Kenison notes, Kingsolver's selection of stories hums "with the energy of twenty disparate voices raised under one roof" (p. xi), making this latest collection definitely "worth the read.".

G. Merritt

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An enlightening journey through contemporary fiction, February 20, 2002

By 

Steven Brown (South Orange, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2001 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

I'm not a connoisseur of contemporary fiction, but when I saw that Barbara Kingsolver edited this year's edition of Best American Short Stories, I was eager to read the work of those writers whom one of my favorite writers most admires. I was not disappointed.

Kingsolver has compiled a diverse selection of short stories that vary in depth and texture. Some, like Peter Ho Davies' "Think of England," with its collection of vivid characters and straightforward narrative, are easily digested. Others, like Nancy Reisman's "Illumination," will challenge even the most intelligent reader to find the "large truths delivered in tight spaces" to which Kingsolver refers in her introduction. (This, despite the book's most memorable opening line: "Lucia Mazzano is a loaf of bread." It immediately reminded me of the improvised line, "You're part eggplant," in True Romance with Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper.)

Highly recommended, especially for those wishing to explore contemporary fiction.