Customer Reviews

The Best American Short Stories 2002 (The Best American Series)

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Best American Short Stories series, edited in recent years by Katrina Kenison, remains the best source of diverse contemporary short fiction. Traditionally, the series editor selects 120 pieces from a wide range of commercial and literary publications, then passes them on to the guest editor, always a well-known writer. The guest editor - in this case Sue Miller - then selects what she believes are the best twenty. Although the guest editor is free to select stories he/she has discovered over the year and which aren't part of the package, few do. This year, the winners were filtered first through the subjective lens of Katrina Kenison, and then through that of Sue Miller. Readers should be aware that these aren't truly the "best" stories of the year, but only those judged so by two people. If you are like me, you WILL come across one or two of these stories that seem unworthy of inclusion; however, the rest will delight you.

Sue Miller wonders in her introduction if her personal imprint will be evident in her selections. She thinks not. However, there are several stories about animals, particularly cows and puppies, and about women unhappy or unsure in their new marriages. Most stories are traditionally told, rich in detail, with straightforward language. Stories from The New Yorker are well represented (eight out of the twenty), but Melissa Hardy's "The Heifer", originally published in Descant, is as engaging as those eight. Famous writers - Edwidge Danticat, Alice Munro, E. L. Doctorow - mingle with the lesser known talents of Mary Yukari Waters, Meg Mullins, and Karl Iagnemma. This is part of what makes this series so enjoyable, that new voices can stand proudly next to the masters'.

Especially when paired with the more experimental Pushcart Prize anthology, this book gives a good report on the trends of contemporary fiction. Look for forthcoming novels from some of the younger writers, as this series often brings them to the attention of book editors and agents.

I highly recommend The Best American Short Stories 2002 for anyone who enjoys reading short fiction. From Michael Chabon's "Along Frontage Road" to Richard Ford's "Puppy" to Mary Yukari Waters's "Aftermath", this book delivers, if not the promise of the title, then its spirit.

It feels somewhat churlish to complain about this collection of extremely well-written stories, but as it's claiming to be "America's Best," here goes...

Taken on their own, there is probably nothing wrong with any of these pieces. Michael Chabon has certainly done better work than 'Along the Frontage Road,' and Richard Russo has applied his tremendous ability to tales less pat and familiar than "The Puppy,' but these aren't bad stories. It's just that so many of them feel so similar. Reading too much of this book in one sitting creates a kind of mesmerizing monotony.

Some gems break the plodding pattern: Jhumpa Lahiri's grad student romance 'Noboby's Business,' fascinates, E.L. Doctrow's 'A House on the Plain' has more twisting plot than any three of his novels, and Beth Lordan's 'Digging' moves with wildly unexpected shifts in time and place -- an epic in miniature. Two stories about troubled mathematicians, 'Zilkowski's Theorem' and 'Nachman From Los Angeles,' also impress.

But overall this collection feels more exhausted than inspired. Perhaps this is the result of too many stories (eight out of twenty) plucked from The New Yorker, or the particular preferences of This-Year's-Name-Guest-Editor Sue Miller, but surely there must be more variety to American short fiction than the tales encountered here would indicate.

I read this collection every year. Usually, I wind up skipping some stories because I just can't get into them. But I didn't skip a single story in this year's volume. All the stories are diversely terrific -- each captivating in their own way.

I admire what Houghton Mifflin is trying to do with the Best American Series. But oftentimes I have to wonder about their selection of stories. Yes, most of the stories in this collection are good, and a few are even great, and a few are bad (Caroly Cooke's 'The Sugar-Tit'; Beth Lordan's "Digging"; Meg Mullins "The Rug"). Now here comes the but... But I don't know if you could call them the best of the year. When I started picking up these books a few years ago I was very excited, but as time goes on the stories sort of blend together. Someone below said 'creeping sameness'. I honestly can't say anything more apt about the collection.

It takes more than an impressive list of names to make a collection of the 'best of'.

There are twenty stories in the 2002 BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES. The best out of how many? I did the math.
In the back of the book is a list of 227 American and Canadian magazines. These aren't the only magazines that publish short stories, but they are the ones (it is claimed - though I doubt that Alligator Juniper or Porcupine are truly in the running) from which the gems were selected. I did some research and averaging and came up with a number for their yearly submissions: 817,200.
Of course, only a minuscule fraction of these stories get accepted for publication. The great mass of them were written, they were submitted, they were rejected. So we are unable to judge their quality. We can only evaluate the ones that do see the light of day. And now, on the pages of BEST, we have before us the creme de la creme.
Interesting, that out of the 227 magazines, eight of the twenty stories are from The New Yorker and nine others are from prestigious publications. As for the authors, I recognized ten of the names in the table of contents. When I checked out the brief biographies at the back of the book, I found that those unknown to me have impressive credentials.
Of course, you could say that the best authors write the best stories and submit to the best magazines, and thus they congregate on the pages of BEST.
What contradicts this assumption is the stories themselves.
Not that they aren't well-written. Someone who's been through a writing program at Columbia or Iowa - or who teaches creative writing - knows not to use the word "resonant" twice in the same sentence. The stories aren't outright bad (except for two BOMBS); most have their virtues. But are they the best? The recurring problem has to do with content.
A story fails in its own way, but I finished many with the ultimate question WHY looming before me. Why was it written? Why was it published? Why did I just read it? I'm not asking for a message or a social purpose - nothing so shallow as that - but I do want to feel that some meaningful and truthful and completed interaction took place between me and the world created on the page. Many of these stories are insular and artificial - roses with no fragrance, waxy to the touch.
Many.... Since quality should always be recognized, I want to acknowledge the stories in the collection that I thought were worthy - to varying degrees - of being there:
Ann Cummins' "The Red Ant House"
Jhumpa Lahiri's "Nobody's Business"
Jill McCorkle's "Billy Goats"
Tom McNeal's "Watermelon Days"
Akhil Sharma's "Surrounded by Sleep"
Five out of twenty (with the McCorkle story being the only one that is wholly successful). Where does that leave us, as regards the state of literature? To my thinking, nowhere good. What could be the cause?

Only a few of the stories here evoke tears, laughter or breath-holding, but still worth the price. Several previous reviewers were critical because 9 stories were from THE NEW YORKER. (The same thing happened in 1992.) Cream rises to the top. Enough said!

I found great variations in locales, time periods, voice, texture, as well as responses of the characters to their circumstances. In her introduction, editor Miller fashions loose categories: the immigrant experience, deals gone awry, dog stories, etc. I could just as easily name groups such as: illicit love, children's voices, academia, morality, etc. So, it is all so very personal! Thank goodness!

Miller praised Richard Ford's "Puppy" due to its "meandering" style, which is exactly what turned me off. If an author wants to ask (and not answer) giant philosophical questions, he should write a novel or maybe an essay. But the Short Story depends on and is driven by an economy of words, and this piece was a failure in that respect.

Alice Munro's "Family Furnishings" was easy to read, engrossing and it glided along without a single bump. It was a satisfying and complex, but not ponderous, a richly woven tapestry of family conflict, snobbery, secrets, growth, shifting alliances and revelations. Munro clearly respects her readers by not being too obvious and not withholding too much.

"Heifer" begins in Finland, telling us of Aina, a teen girl with a fantasized love for Uwe, who sails to Canada to establish a farm. The incredibly strong-willed Aina later follows but only finds misery and a dolt of a husband. She takes her fate into her own hands. Cool stuff!

At first I was disappointed in "Digging" for it's seeming lack of character development, but then I came to realize that character development can be done ancesterorally as well as in the traditionsl way. Excellent writing and technique.

To me, most stories written from a child's perspective fail because the voice of origin seems so phony. Not so in "Red Ant House," where the child's voice is as clear and true as a ringing bell. But untruth and the usual phoniness prevailed in "Billy Goats." Too bad.

"Watermelon Days" tells us of Doreen, a Philadelphia flapper who winds up in South Dakota where she meets an insipid radio announcer. With nothing more on the horizon Doreen marries him and has a child, Edna. We learn that Doreen has neither talent nor desire for motherhood and seems almost sociopathic in her selfishness, irresponsibility and disdain for her husband. (She reminded me of Mildred in OF HUMAN BONDAGE - a user, a taker.) Perhaps Doreen's behavior originates in her disordered and deceitful childhood (and maybe that's the point). If you like nihilistic and depressing stories, this one is for you!

Those are the highlights (in my opinion). Happy reading!

The Best American Short Stories 2002 is a wonderful collection, and a great introduction to some of america's finest new authors. I especially liked the first story, entitled Along the Fontage Road -a compelling story from a father's point of veiw about raising his son in today's world. I would recomend this book to just about anyone who enjoys reading.

There are good stories in this book, no doubt. But, "Best" of 2002? Of the (I think I recall correctly) 20 short stories, eight are from The New Yorker. Perhaps The NYer prints many of the best short stories; in fact, they probably do - given their readership, pay scale, and authors they attract.

However, if you want to read The new Yorker just buy The New Yorker. If you want a variety of short stories from a variety of magazines, you won't find them in this book.

What you will find is a nice bibliography of all the magazines read by the editor and considered for publication in this touted series. As a new author, this is good. To me, it's a nice list of suggestions about where to submit stories. Even though those stories probably won't make it to this series, the bibliography suggests a degree of clout. I think this is important given how many magazines out there; the honed-down list can be useful. (This isn't the only place to find such a thing, but it is a way to see which magazines the editors of this series consulted.)

Another book, the annual Pushcart Prize selection, works similarly. The list of publications *they* used gives us a good lesson in small presses that aren't so small as to be ignored, yet too small to be viewed by _this_ series or a wide readership.

Basically, I feel this is a book for writers more than for readers. We learn what the editors are reading, where they are reading it, and what they are looking for. If you are a reader looking for a short story collection, I'd say skip it - despite, I'm sure, the many hours of reading and thought put in by the editor.