The quarter-century edition of a "distinguished annual literary event" (Anne Tyler, New York Times Book Review) For its twenty-fifth year, The Pushcart Prize surpasses itself with a stunning presentation of new and celebrated authors. Over sixty stories, essays, and poems appear in this landmark edition, picked from more than 5,000 nominations. Over the years more than 400 presses have been honored with reprints in The Pushcart Prize, the most praised literary series in America: winner of the Carey-Thomas Award, named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, picked for several Book-of-the-Month Club selections, and hailed by Publishers Weekly as "among the most influential in the development of the American book business in the past century and a quarter." "The single best measure of the state of affairs in American literature today."—New York Times Book Review "[A]mong the most influential [series] in the development of the American book business in the past century and a quarter."—Publishers Weekly "The Pushcart Prize is essential."—Library Journal "Those who despair of finding good writing in mass media America need look no further than The Pushcart Prize."—Booklist)
--This text refers to the
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Looking back on his 25 years of editing the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses anthology, Bill Henderson writes, "I was somewhat of a fool but I thought at least 'a holy fool' as Ted Hoagland described us small press types in his introduction to PPXVI." The term "holy fool" might be a red flag for some readers: Does this mean Henderson prints writing that's good for you, but no good? Rest assured that the Pushcart Prize is, was, and ever shall be virtuous and fun to read.
This 25th edition is by way of being a celebration of this vital series--one of the most fascinating pieces in the collection being, simply, a list in the back of the book of "Presses featured in the Pushcart Prize editions since 1976." Their very titles give an idea of the breadth, excellence, and sheer weirdness of the Pushcart project. You'll find Black Scholar, Prairie Schooner, Revista Chicano-Riquena, North Dakota Quarterly, and something called, rather evocatively, Lucille.
This year's collection, as befits a silver anniversary edition, is full of uncompromising work from writers both well known and unknown. It starts off in an elegiac mood with "The Anointed," a lovely, melancholic story by Kathleen Hill that recalls Alice Mattison and was also collected in the 2000 edition of the Best American Short Stories. Things get a bit hotter with Sharon Doubiago's poem "How to Make Love to a Man": "Remember like gripping / a tennis racket." Just to keep things au courant for 2000, there's "Two Prayers," a short, sharp shock of a story by Paul Maliszewski, collected from Dave Eggers' hip-to-be-square magazine-in-a-box McSweeney's. The elegant memoirist Patricia Hampl wanders through a minefield of memory, mother, and the meaning of writing. In fact, much of the writing collected here reflects on writing: Seamus Heaney asks, "What good is poetry?" and Beth Ann Fennelly reveals "the irony of metaphor: / you are closest to something / when naming what it is not." Not much has been left unnamed in 25 years of defiantly brainy story-mongering. --Claire Dederer
From Publishers Weekly
The Pushcart Prize turns 25 this year and marks its quarter-century with a strong, serious-minded selection of 74 works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Many of the personal essays focus on writing. Bret Lott, in "Toward Humility," gives a rather sentimental, behind-the-scenes account of having a novel chosen by Oprah Winfrey (whom Lott calls "the Force"). A more intellectually rigorous essay by Patricia Hampl, "Other People's Secrets," explores the uneasy ethics by which the writer justifies "telling secrets and getting away with it." A droll poem by John Ashbery, "Your Name Here," is like a cubist collage of Paris as an ant farm. Salvatore Scibona's short story, "Prairie," is a quiet but devastating portrait of solitude and willed muteness on the Manitoba frontier of the 1880s. Marcia, the protagonist of Joan Silber's "Commendable," is another kind of pioneerDa woman who enrolled in the sexual revolution as a topless dancer, and in middle age comes back to the region she grew up in. Bay Anapol's "The Man with Paper Eyes" is a romance set in the special section of the California prison system devoted to transsexual prisoners, but transcends the merely gothic by being genuinely heartfelt. Few of the entries test boundaries like Anapol's story, and the humor quotient is down in this year's volume, but the poetry selections are excellent. The series continues to stand as a valuable resource for writers and readers alike, richly engaging the stray surfer. With its target readership alerted by advertising in 40 literary journals, it should sell respectably and, given that this is an anniversary anthology, even more. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Daniel S. Libman is the winner of a Pushcart Prize for fiction as well as a Paris Review discovery Prize, now called the Plimpton Prize. His story In the Belly of the Cat has been anthologized many times and translated into several languages, including Italian and Russian. He has published stories and essays in many journals and magazines including Details, Other Voices, Columbia, The Paris Review, The Baffler, Santa Monica Review, and The Chicago Reader. Winner of a writing grant from the Illinois Arts Council, Dan is currently holed up in rural Illinois with his wife, the writer Molly McNett, two kids, a dog and a cat, and chickens too numerous to count.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
best of the year?,
By adead_poet@hotmail.com "adead_poet@hotmail.com" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)
This review is from: The Pushcart Prize XXV: Best of the Small Presses (2001 Edition) (Paperback)
For 25 years Bill Henderson has been doing a noble thing with his Pushcart Prize Anthologies. Looking at the list of previous winners, you see quite an impressive list, and while not every writer of merit is represented, many are. I'm not familiar with the previous editions, but this year's selection seems a bit week. There are 40 poems, and like the entries in the 2001 Best American Poetry, they aren't the strongest choices. There are only three essays (one on apples--bad; one on Milton--great; and one by Seamus Heaney--ok), and you would think there would have been more in this selection. There are 24 pieces of fiction that range from the really bad to the pretty good. And then, a cross between the essay and fiction, there are 10 memoirs that also span the range. Looking at the contributing editors you'd think Henderson's choices could have been stronger. But we take what we have.
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