Established in 1918 as a memorial to O. Henry, this annual literary tradition has presented a remarkable offering of stories over its seventy-seven-year history. O. Henry first-prize winners have included Dorothy Parker, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, John Cheever, John Updike, and Cynthia Ozick, as well as some lesser-known writers such as Alison Baker and Cornelia Nixon. Many talented writers who were unknown when first chosen for an O. Henry Award later went on to become seminal voices of contemporary American fiction. Representative of the very best in contemporary American fiction, these are varied, full-bodied fictional creations brimming with life--proof of the continuing strength and variety of the American short story.
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Every year since 1918, the editors of the O. Henry Awards have selected the best of the previous year's short fiction. The 1998 anthology contains 20 prizewinning stories, three of which have been specially honored by jurors Andrea Barrett, Mary Gaitskill, and Rick Moody. It's a fascinating and diverse collection, more adventurous than its rival, Best American Short Stories , but like that series it provides an edifying look at the state of American short fiction. As it turns out, rumors of the form's death have been greatly exaggerated. For starters, we have first prize winner Lorrie Moore's "People Like That Are the Only People Here"--the harrowing but profoundly unsentimental story of a mother whose baby is diagnosed with cancer. Second prize goes to Stephen Millhauser's creepy little fable "The Knife Thrower," about a traveling showman whose performance mixes violence, eroticism, and art, and third to Canadian master Alice Munro's dry-eyed account of a young woman leaving her marriage, "The Children Stay." These stories have little in common but their reluctance to take either fiction or experience secondhand. They hold the world up to us, strange and new; they transgress.
By turns magical and troubling, the best short stories leave readers in a state much like that of the knife thrower's appalled but fascinated audience: "Long and loud we applauded, as she bowed and held aloft the glittering knife, assuring us, in that way, that she was wounded but well, or well-wounded; and we didn't know whether we were applauding her wellness or her wound, or the touch of the master, who had crossed the line, who had carried us, safely, it appeared, into the realm of forbidden things."
From Publishers Weekly
The 78th volume in the series (the second edited by Dark), this year's O. Henry collection is full of powerful performances, from the furiously ironic Lorrie Moore tale that opens the volume (the first-place story) to the heart-shattering Annie Proulx story that closes it. In "People Like That Are the Only People Here" (also in her current collection, Birds of America), Moore takes on an event nearly impossible to relate dispassionately (but she does), of a mother who sees her baby endangered by cancer. In "Brokeback Mountain" Proulx tells, with restraint and wrenching clarity, of two dirt-poor Wyoming ranch hands and the hard bargains they make to love each other. Other familiar authors work the veins they have already claimed. Steven Millhauser's second-prize entry, "The Knife Thrower" (the title of his latest collection), describes collusion between a performer and his voyeuristic audience in the best Poesque Millhauser style. Alice Munro's third-prize story, "The Children Stay" (in her collection, The Love of a Good Woman, forthcoming in November), describes a woman on an emotional precipice, capturing the moment a young mother walks out on her children. In "Satan: Highjacker of a Planet," Louise Erdrich gives us a girl drawn into religious and sexual passion. There are also gems here by less celebrated writers, such as Akhil Sharma's "Cosmopolitan," about a lonely Indian immigrant trying to adapt to love American style, and Maxine Swann's "Flower Children," in which parents in perpetual flower-childhood raise offspring. Many of the stories work common American themes: unhinged Protestantism, displacement and reinvention of self, and the wilderness, both physical and emotional. Some stories ramble, and others fall back on violence for effect. But the refreshing voices of Reginald McKnight, Peter Weltner, George Saunders and Thom Jones redress the balance.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Perfect Teacher for Beginning Short Story Writers,
By
This review is from: Prize Stories 1998 (Pen / O. Henry Prize Stories) (Paperback)
Though I majored in English, I never took a creative writing course while in college. When I started writing fiction a few years ago, I knew that I couldn't enter an MFA program because I'm a full-time attorney with a family to feed and a mortgage to pay. So, I decided that I should read as much fiction as possible to help teach myself the craft of writing. One of the books I purchased was the then-new 1998 Prize Stories: The O'Henry Awards. I couldn't have made a better choice! In this one volume, I read Lorrie Moore's heartbreaking "People Like That Are the Only People Here," Steven Millhauser's chilling "The Knife Thrower," Alice Munro's evocative "The Children Stay," among many other wonderful and powerful fiction from The New Yorker, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Harper's, and others. Larry Dark, the series editor, and the prize jury, Andrea Barrett, Mary Gaitskill and Rick Moody, did a wonderful job pulling together the best short fiction of that year. This collection not only gave me great joy as a reader, but also wonderful lessons in the art and craft of fiction writing.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cutting-edge short fiction.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Prize Stories 1998 (Pen / O. Henry Prize Stories) (Paperback)
Excellent collection of cutting-edge short fiction. If you want to see the extreme edges of today's scene and what, hopefully, is the future of short fiction, buy this collection every year. Extremely compelling work, wide variety of styles, and not the same old names.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark has revitalized the series!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Prize Stories 1998 (Pen / O. Henry Prize Stories) (Paperback)
As an avid reader of the O.Henry series, I felt that it was in a bit of a rut until this new editor, Larry Dark came along. Last year and especially this year, the O. Henry has become exciting and cutting edge, and Dark must be given all the credit. C'est magnefique Monseiur Dark!!
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