New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2008 [Paperback]

ZZ Packer (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2008

This year, acclaimed short-story writer ZZ Packer chooses twenty distinctive stories representing the great number of voices and narratives coming out of the South. Some of the youngest and freshest talents on the literary horizon—Bret Anthony Johnston, Kevin Brockmeier, Holly Goddard Jones—accompany well-known Southern stalwarts, including Pinckney Benedict, Clyde Edgerton, and Ron Rash. Their stories tell of life as it is now, a life not seen in romanticized Southern fiction, one where existence—both urban and rural—is as raw and risky as it is alluring. The energy of this collection courses through every one of Packer's edgy, funny, and gritty selections.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

For this year's volume, acclaimed writer ZZ Packer chooses some of the youngest and freshest voices on the literary horizon to accompany a host of well-established writers. And the stories they write tell of the South as it is now, the one not seen in the romanticized Southern fiction, but one where life is raw and risky. Here you'll find young girls encountering their first taste of corrupt adult world, a boy meeting his father for the first time, an uncle dealing with a nephew who's turned to meth. But this is still the South, and there is an alligator to be dealt with, a hurricane churning offshore, and the belief that a day at the beach can cure all.

As ZZ packer says in her introduction, "the sit-ins, the marches, the hope of better days…began in the South. Every other region can jam its fingers in its ears and shake its head and tunelessly chant 'Not in My Backyard,' but not so in the South. The South is the backyard. And as backward as we've been portrayed—or as backward as we've sometimes portrayed ourselves, slipping behind a curtain of innocent and naïve agrarianism, rural somnolence, and sleepy everlasting vowels—the truth is that every awful and beautiful thing that has happened in America happened in the South first." You'll feel the pulse of the South coursing through every one of her selections.

About the Author

Z.Z. Packer's first collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a New York Times Notable Book, and was selected by John Updike for the Today Show Book Club. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, a Whiting Writers' Award, and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. Packer is on the faculty of California College of the Arts, and her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and New Stories from the South.

Product Details

• Paperback: 428 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 2008 edition (August 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565126122
• ISBN-13: 978-1565126121
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #706,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Southern short fiction, November 23, 2008

By 

Jane Friess "Dedicated reader" (Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2008 (Paperback)

Short fiction is one of my favorite areas, and I find myself reading the three big anthologies every year. This year's New Stories from the South was enjoyable, and well worth the purchase. As with every anthology there are high points (Bret Anthony Johnston's "Republican") and low points (Merrit Tierce's "Suck It"). But the variety and the new ways of approaching life make me continue to be a serious fan. I was particularly happy to see so many stories from an excellent variety of magazines that I would otherwise not have read. Kudos ZZ Packer on your selections.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed With this Edition, February 15, 2009

By 

James B. Hemby "jamesbh999" (Youngsville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2008 (Paperback)

While there are some terrific stories in the 2008 edition, overall this volume is simply not up to the standards of the previous anthologies in this series. This was my introduction to Ms. ZZ Packer and I wasn't impressed. I think her direction is selecting stories (professed in the preface) took the collection from "New Stories of the South" to "Stories of the New South" in unimpressive ways. Her direction diluted the essential continuity between the stores that was the genius of the previous editions and frankly allowed some rather weak stories to be included. Let's hope this direction is not continued in the series and that Ms Packer is not allowed as editor again. One has to do more than have simply set foot in the South at some time in one's life or have found the Region on a map to be considered a Southern writer.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simply simple, December 22, 2008

By 

Joe Walden - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2008 (Paperback)

I've been a fan of this collection (New Stories) since 2006, and this continues my favor. The only drawback is the vast amount of typos (three or four within the first story itself). You would think someone would catch them. But the stories were good, and I look forward to next years.