Customer Reviews

The Best American Short Stories of the Century

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One of the things I have always liked about Updike is that he is willing to undertake something like this--even though it will inevitably make him vulnerable to criticisms like the ones raised in other reviews here. I can see why some omissions rankle: but, but BUT! Look at what's here! Almost all of the stories are nothing short of brilliant. Yes, "The Lottery" was probably amongst the best of the century, but it is anthologized everywhere in the universe: many of these are not. Many are not-so-well-known works by the best writers the 20th century had. I could quibble about many of the selections. For instance, I wouldn't have chose "Greenleaf" to represent one my favorites, Flannery O'Connor, or "The Killers" to represent Ernest Hemingway. But they're still great stories, worth including and worth reading.

The best I think are those from the early part of the century, but that's probably my own bias talking. I'm not a fan of many of the representatives chosen for the latter half of the century, and the selection for 1999--yuck! But I'm willing to trust Updike's judgment over my own for a little while, and if he thinks Annie Proulx is worth reading...ok: It's worth a few pages of my time to find out.

The anthology also does a good job of tracing in fiction the transformations of American culture: the first are immigrant stories, the next are primarily rural-based farming stories (A Jury of Her Peers--great story), and then the last are urban, ex-urban, and suburban stories.

Read and enjoy.

When I bought this book, I first checked to see if my favorite contemporary authors were represented: the impossibly great Alice Munro, Thom Jones, Lorrie Moore ... and they indeed are in there. I'm intrigued by Updike's choices for those authors, because they weren't the choices I would have made. I enjoyed thinking about why he made those choices; I wish I could join Updike for lunch and debate him. What I most enjoy about this collection is the surprises. I had always thought Hemingway was overrated, but his tale here, "The Killers," is a hair-raising gem. And I had never heard of J.F. Powers, who has a wonderful shaggy-dog story in this collection that made me laugh out loud. You can see that Joyce Carol Oates was writing about the same subject matter in 1962 that she writes about now, but the telling is fresh in her 37-year-old story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?". Yes, I quibble with the exclusion of Shirley Jackson and J.D. Salinger, but not too much. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "The Lottery" would have been predictable and boring selections (actually, I like "Seymour: An Introduction" better). This is not a boring collection.

I believe that most writers or short story readers will agree that these are not the "best" stories of the 20th century. Such a collection would include better known masterpieces like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Instead, this a collection of brilliant, but lesser known stories by accomplished writers.

I think Updike makes it clear that his goal was to assemble great stories from all decades, but not necessarily the best stories. I believe there was a pointed effort made, in assembling these stories, not to include the well-known American standards that most college educated people have read. The New York Times sums up the result : "Finding wonderful stories that you don't already know is one of this collection's greatest pleasures . . Updike has made some surprising, even striking selections."

Most of Updike's surprising selections are very enjoyable. My only disappointment was the 1999 story by Pam Houston. There are too many great writers these days to include this contemporary mediocrity. What about Rick Bass, Charles Baxter, Mark Richard? Just my opinion.

Overall, I recommend this book without reservation.

I bought this book a little dubious of its quality (mainly because the annual publication has so many glaring ommisions, such as John O'Hara and more contemporarily, Deborah Eisenberg), however I was pleasantly surprised. The selection amongst the famous authors are brilliant (I'm thinking specifically of Nabokov, Faulkner and Hemingway). There are also short stories I'd never heard of that are amongst the best I've ever read (Elizabeth Bishop's gem and E.B. White's hysterically brilliant story). Finally there is a list of stories that doesn't dismiss contemporary writers. It is nice to see writers like Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Alice Munro, Tim O'Brien and Anne Proulox be recognized. But I must once again bemoan the absence of perhaps the best living short story writer, Deborah Eisenberg.

Collectors interested in hearing the authors read their own stories might enjoy this production; but if you want to appreciate the stories for their own sake, steer clear of the audio version. The decision to use some of these authors as narrators was a huge mistake. Jill McCorkle's dreary monotone could sedate a grizzly (don't listen to "Theft" while you're driving). James Alan McPherson is essentially unintelligible. He does a poor impersonation of Demosthenes having a bad pebble day. If you really want to hear these stories read by someone, give yourself a break: buy the book, and read it aloud. You'll do a far better job than this crew.

I am ambivalent about this collection. On one hand, each of the writers in this collection is famous for one reason or another, making this a very good record of our literary tradition for the last 100 years. On the other hand, these stories had to be culled from the Best American Short Stories annual, which is a limiting and somewhat misleading proposition for the consumer. Most readers, I suspect, will recognize the obvious omissions and curious substitutions this makes. However, there are some interesting gems that are well worth the read. I do recommend it, but don't believe the title. Think of this book as a good sampler.

I used to go to the library and read the old annual Best American Short Story collections. There was something almost religious about picking up a copy from 1927 and reading a story by a then unknown kid named Ernest Hemingway in that old type-face, or the Faulkner stories in just about every annual volume during the 1930s. The bios of these writers at the back of the old copies when they were unknown writers was so innocent and naive. Modern critical theory has influenced my perception of so many of these writers, and that is shame.

The stories collected in this Best American Short Stories of the Century are taken from the the annual volumes. There are stories representing each decade from the teens to the 90s. There are classics, and there are surprises. My favorite is Ann Beattie's "Janus." It is subtle and masterfully written.

I've owned this book for two years, and I read it from time-to-time. Some stories I've read four or five times. Some I haven't read at all. And it's a book that it's okay to do that with, I think. The Fitzgerald story "Crazy Sunday" was something of a nice surprise, and indeed, that kind of surprise seems at the heart of what Updike and Kenison were aiming to realize. How to make a Best of the 20th Century anotholgy exciting, you know? Considering they could only take stories from the annual Best of American Short Story anothologies, they did that well, I think. Martha Gellhorn's "Miami--New York" was insightful. The John Cheever, Raymond Carver, and Joyce Carol Oates stories are great classics. I enjoyed Donald Barthelme's "A City of Churches" and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" -- stories ranging from the humorous, to the heartrending.

If I could make one suggestion regarding Best American Short Stories, it would be this: I think it would be interesting if every few years they allowed a so-called popular writer to read as guest editor. These stories end up representing a kind of intellectual clique. And it would be interesting to see what a guest editor like John Grisham or Stephen King would add to the mix of our nation's collective stories.

Stacey Cochran
Author of CLAWS available for 80 cents

Solely due to the way this book was assembled, it cannot live up to its title. This book is not an assemblage of the best short stories from the entire body of 20th century American literature; rather, this book is an anthology of the best stories that happened to have appeared in the annual Best American Short Story volumes. So, to make it into this book, a story would have had to be recognized when it was written as being one of the best of that year, as chosen by a single editor/reader.

I enjoy reading short stories, and every year I purchase both the O. Henry Prize Stories and the Best American Short Stories. When I first did this, I was amazed at how little overlap there is between 20 stories chosen for each anthology (usually, there are only one or two stories in common, and typically the story chosen by O. Henry as the best of the year does not appear in the other anthology). So once again we have evidence that beauty (and art and subjective opinions such as "best") are in the eye of the beholder.

So, can John Updike's selections be debated? Undoubtedly; every reader of this anthology will be able to cite stories and authors that they believe should have been included (as for me, I was most disappointed by the absence of Ray Bradbury). But is this anthology worth reading? Absolutely!

Reading this anthology cover-to-cover is like traveling through time, and provides an enriching perspective on the history of the 20th century in America. From the hardscrabble existence of immigrants and farmers, to the Depression, to the problems of racism, to the war, to the ennui that exists in a time of relative plenty, these stories do cover the broad American experience of the past century. Furthermore (aside from Ray Bradbury), many of our best authors are represented, so this book is a good way to get introduced to authors that one has heard about but not read before.

It's surprising to me that short story anthologies aren't more popular, given our busy society. A well written short story entertains, conveys a message, teaches something about the human condition, and can be enjoyed in one sitting, such as a short plane or train ride. I would highly recommend this anthology as a way for short story novices to get started, and then one can graduate to the annual O. Henry and Best American Short Story anthologies.

From the well of short stories written by Americans in the 20th century, which were the best? The title of this book led me to believe that in it John Updike would attempt to answer this question. But he doesn't. As the introduction reveals, he asks, rather, which stories by Americans were the best in each decade, intentionally giving each decade roughly equal weight. He also intentionally excludes stories that don't take place in America (or inexplicably, Canada), with two (inexplicable) exceptions. So, if one decade was particularly heavy with great fiction, another particularly light, that is not reflected here. American writers' perceptions of foreign countries in large part are also not here for the (again inexplicable) reason that such stories do not reflect "an American reality". We have instead the best short stories of each decade, so long as those stories take place in America or Canada, considered separately decade by decade. Thus, the title of the book becomes misleading and "the best short story" people who have been keeping a watch over the short story world for nearly a century and therefore are probably the only people capable of producing a book of the best American short stories of the century have lost their opportunity to do so. I do not think this is a small concern. It would have been fantastic to see how each decade measured up against the other in terms of the quantity of great stories in each. This book, like so many, is a collection of lots of fine short stories, but it is not the collection that it purports (via its title at least) to be.

Let's face it, superlatives sell. Who is going to buy a short story collection entitled: "A Collection of Well Written Stories from a Bunch of Different People, from 1915 to 1999". Not catchy and you can't dance to it. Another fact--there is no way that you could put together a collection of the greatest American short stories from the 20th century and have everyone agree on it. That being said, this is a very good collection of stories. I will admit, some bored me, some I really didn't like, but there is a lot in there and on the whole I think it's a worthwhile read. Some of the stories blew me away--particularly Alice Elliot Dark's In the Gloaming. Some, I couldn't even finish. As a whole, I am very glad I read them. This collection introduced me to a number of writers I had never read before, some I haven't read in a while, and some I read anytime anything new comes out. Of the stories I enjoyed (and that's most of them), I am appeciative of Updike's including them. This collection, while it has a few weak links, is strong and makes for enjoyable reading.