Edited by critically acclaimed, best-selling author Alice Sebold, the stories in this year's collection serve as a provacative literary "antenna for what is going on in the world" (Chicago Tribune). The collection boasts great variety from "famous to first-timers, sifted from major magazines and little reviews, grand and little worlds" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), ensuring yet another rewarding, eduring edition of the oldest and best-selling Best American.
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About the Author
HEIDI PITLOR is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her fiction has been published in Ploughshares, and she is the author of the novel The Birthdays.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best of the recent vintages,
By cs211 "cs211" (United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2009 (Paperback)
Alice Sebold and Heidi Pitlor are to be commended for assembling an excellent collection of stories from a wide variety of different themes, styles, viewpoints, subjects, tones and genres. Often the guest editor will make a strong imprint on the collection by choosing a particular type of short story. Sebold and Pitlor appear to have taken their job very seriously this year, and have put together a volume worthy of the moniker "Best American Short Stories".
There is one story which rises far above the others, due to the writer's craftsmanship: Richard Powers' "Modulation". Powers mixes together a variety of dissimilar characters scattered around the globe and ties them all together with a science fiction storyline that conveys the power and importance of music in the present day. Powers has excellent command of the English language and keen observational skills, and it is hard to imagine how this story could be any better than it is. Other stories that I enjoyed include: -- "The Idiot President", by Daniel Alarcon: No, this is not a diatribe against George Bush. Rather, it is a gripping portrait of the performing arts scene in a second world country, and the struggles that actors and audience members endure for the sake of the performance. The tale-within-the-tale, or more accurately the play-within-the-story, is also engaging and features a nice plot twist and moral at the end. -- "Beyond the Pale", by Joseph Epstein: besides being an interesting character study of the younger immigrant wife of a Yiddish author, it also illustrates how renowned artists often are famous because of the right set of circumstances, especially having the right members of an audience, and how there can be similarly skilled artists whose work fades into obscurity because of a single shortcoming in conveying the artistic work to the audience, not in the artistic work itself. -- "NowTrends", by Karl Taro Greenfield: A lesson in how China's rapid modernization and adaption of capitalism while still within the constraints of an officially communistic or socialistic system has produced dramatic effects on (and much uncertainty about) the lives, morals and behaviors of Chinese citizens. -- "Sagittaruius", by Greg Hrbek: a story about the process a father undergoes while learning to accept and love his less-than-perfect child. While few children will have the defect that the subject of this story does, all parents should be able to relate to the lesson in this story, as no child (or parent) is perfect. It is hard to limit myself to just citing these stories; "Modulation" stands alone as the best story in the book, but once past that one, the other stories (with just two exceptions) were all very good. The only two stories I felt should have been omitted were Namwali Serpell's "Muzungu" and Kevin Moffett's "One Dog Year", both of which I didn't think had coherent or interesting plotlines. 2009 Best American Short Stories is definitely worth reading if you are a fan of the short story form. If you are not yet a fan, I can recommend the 2009 volume as being one of the best of the recent vintages, and a worthy entrée into the world of the short story.
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not many laughs, not much sci-fi,
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This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2009 (Paperback)
Compared with last year's compilation, edited by Stephen King, the body count is much lower. There's less disease than usual; no cancer and only one Alzheimer's disease. Not that it's very cheerful. There's not much humor and there are are no new Perelmans, or Thurbers or Woody Allens. Sebald must prefer Kafka and George Orwell. She favors stories about helpless victims of oppressive bureaucracies.Asimov's was not among the magazines surveyed.
The plots are as follows: Guerilla theater in South America Middle school teachers' romantic intrigues Viet Vet trapped by Katrina Great neglected Yiddish writer stays neglected Prohibition era dim young things Oppressive Chinese bureaucracy Unappreciated Good Samaritan Baby is Centaur Displaced Katrina victims Francophile mother-in-law More oppressive Chinese bureaucracy Oppressive Kafka-like bureaucracy Stands up date to help kid Elderly billionaire is childish Catchy tune Homeless on the range Hilly-billy ginseng-induced crime Seder memories Mechanical civil warfare White trash in Zambia
16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed bag,
By
This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2009 (Paperback)
A few years ago I decided I wanted to learn about the craft of short stories and figured the best way to do this was to subscribe to a number of literary journals. So I subscribed to The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Boulevard, Glimmer Train, Crazyhorse, Iowa Review, and a few others. It didn't take me long to realize though that, unless you have a job in the industry, wading through these magazines every quarter is a significant waste of time. Yes, there are some great stories in these quarterlies, but finding them can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Most of the writing is competent enough, but the truly good stories are few and far between. I even found this to be the case in the really prestigious journals, like Paris Review. So I decided to let my subscriptions lapse. Around the time I did so however, I discovered this annual anthology and decided to pick it up. Having an esteemed writer do all the wading through the muck to leave only the best stories for me to read seemed a great idea.
There are twenty stories here. If you read a lot of short stories you will have heard of some of the writers represented, such as Annie Proulx, Jill McCorkle, and Yiyun Li. But more than likely, most of these writers will be new names to you. Like any anthology, it's doubtful that you'll like every story because there are so many different styles represented. There's the stories that hit the emotional chords, like "Yurt" by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, `Magic Words" by Jill McCorkle, and "The Anniversary Trip" by Victoria Lancelotta. There's the historical fiction, like "One Dog Year" by Kevin Moffett and "The Peripatetic Coffin" by Ethan Rutherford. There's the recent-history fiction, like "Rubiaux Rising" by Steve De Jarnatt and "Hurricanes Anonymous" by Adam Johnson. The foreign stories, like "The Idiot President" by Daniel Alarcon, "NowTrends" by Karl Taro Greenfield, and "A Man Like Him" by Yiyun Li. There's the fantastical and experimental fiction, like "Sagittarius" by Greg Hrbek and "Modulation" by Richard Powers. And wherever there's Annie Proulx, you know you have at least one cowboy story. I liked the emotional stories the best, such as "Yurt" and "Magic Words". I disliked the Katrina stories, but I dislike most recent-history fiction because they're usually too preachy for me. I dislike fantasy so hated "Sagittarius". I thought "Modulation" was creative and well-crafted. In other words, reading this anthology wasn't much different from reading a good literary journal. All the writing is competent, but your tastes will determine which stories you like. Most readers will like a few stories here, hate some, and be indifferent to most. So, unless you're really interested in the craft of short stories or don't mind wading through a lot of uninspired writing just to get a few good morsels, I'd suggest skipping this book.
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