New Stories from the South 2001: The Year's Best [Paperback]

Shannon Ravenel (Editor), Lee Smith (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2001 | Series: New Stories from the South

It would be easy to describe the stories in this year's collection as typically Southern, if we only knew what that was. As Lee Smith writes in her engaging and provocative preface, the South is both as it always was and profoundly different. Some things have stayed the same: "As a whole, we Southerners are still religious, and we are still violent. We'll bring you a casserole, but we'll kill you, too." And some things have changed: many a Southerner spends more time in the mall than the kitchen, and many a Southerner is really a displaced Northerner. Still, there's something about life below the

Mason-Dixon line that leads to evocative, hilarious, moving, authentic, rip-your-heart-out stories.

Maybe it's true, as Lee Smith says, that "narrative is as necessary to us as air." Maybe narrative is in the air. This year's collection ranges from small vacant towns to thriving Southern cities, tracking the likes of a violent paperhanger, an ambitious fiddler, a failed adman, and a boy who kidnaps his schoolbus driver.

Nineteen standout writers make appearances in this year's volume: John Barth, Madison Smartt Bell, Marshall Boswell, Carrie Brown, Stephen Coyne, Moira Crone, William Gay, Jim Grimsley, Ingrid Hill, Christie Hodgen, Nicola Mason, Edith Pearlman, Kurt Rheinheimer, Jane R. Shippen, George Singleton, Robert Love Taylor, James Ellis Thomas, Elizabeth Tippens, Linda Wendling.

Each story is followed by an author's note. Readers will also find an updated list of magazines consulted by Ravenel and a complete list of all the stories selected each year since the inception of the series in 1986.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There are no weak links in this collection of 20 stories, though with the exceptions of John Barth and Madison Smartt Bell, the series' 16th volume lacks household names. Editor Ravenel has done her usual superb job of finding a variety of stories that encompass virtually all aspects of Southern life. "The Paperhanger" by William Gay, a frequent contributor, involves a girl who mysteriously vanishes, and her parents' subsequent ruin. The paperhanger of the title reveals himself to be "one sick puppy," as one of the locals observes, and the ending of this tale is not for the faint of heart. In "Jolie-Gray" by Ingrid Hill (a talented writer still waiting for her big break), what appears to be a leisurely, how-I-spent-my-summer vacation story suddenly turns sinister when 15-year-old Jolie-Gray is turned out onto the streets of New Orleans by a deceitful relative and left to fend for herself. Jane Shippen in "I Am Not Like Nu¤ez" draws a frightening portrait of another 15-year-old, Charlotte Kay, known as Sharky, who with her pill-popping stripper mother and delinquent young brother, Nu¤ez, is on a fast track to trouble and oblivion. The most humorous story is "In Between Things" by Marshall Boswell, in which a couple are only happy dating when they are officially no longer a couple. Barth's story "The Rest of Your Life," more accessible than most of his writing, hinges on a computer suddenly changing the current date to August 27, 1956, and all the speculations, memories and possibilities inherent in such a situation. This is a fine showcase for the South's many talented writers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The South, Lee Smith notes in her preface, has become very urban--two-thirds urban, in fact, whereas in the 1930s it was two-thirds rural. The various triumphs of contemporary American urbania, so she has witnessed, have spread out across the space between cities, absorbing rural areas. Of course, along with the Carolinas and Virginia and Tennessee, the South also includes Miami, Atlanta, Memphis, and New Orleans. The stories in this new anthology have hints of the changes Smith notes, but the collection covers a wide range of locales. There are some prominent authors represented here, such as John Barth and Madison Smartt Bell, and some prominent journals from points north as well, such as Ontario Review and the New Yorker. Amid an urban South more and more imbued with a national culture, Smith sees that something southern nonetheless persists: "We southerners love a story, and will tell you anything." James O'Laughlin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (September 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565123115
• ISBN-13: 978-1565123113
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,797,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)