The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories [Paperback]

Tobias Wolff (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 1994

The thirty-three stories in this volume prove that American short fiction maybe be our most distinctive national art form. As selected and introduced by Tobias Wolff, they also make up an alternate map of the United States that represents not just geography but narrative traditions, cultural heritage, and divergent approaches.

Contributors and stories include: Mary Gaitskill, "A Romantic Weekend"; Thom Jones, "A White Horse";  Andre Dubus, "The Fat Girl"; Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"; Chris Offutt, "Aunt Granny Lith"; Raymond Carver, "Cathedral"; Joyce Carol Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"; Robert Stone, "Helping";  Mona Simpson, "Lawns";  Ann Beattie, "A Vintage Thunderbird"; Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"; Stuart Dybek, "Chopin in Water"; Barry Hannah, "Testimony of Pilot";  John Edgar Wideman, "Daddy Garbage"; Ron Hansen, "Wickedness"; Denis Johnson, "Emergency"; Edward P. Jones, "The First Day"; John L'Heureux, "Departures"; Ralph Lombreglia, "Men Under Water"; Leonard Michaels, "Murderers"; Robert Olmstead, "Cody's Story"; Jayne Anne Phillips, "Home"; Susan Power, "Moonwalk"; Amy Tan, "Rules of the Game"; Stephanie Vaughn, "Dog Heaven"; Joy Williams, "Train"; Dorothy Allison, "River of Names"; Richard Bausch, "All The Way in Flagstaff, Arizona"; Carol Bly, "Talk of Heroes"; Scott Bradfield, "The Darling"; Kate Braverman, "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta"; Richard Ford, "Rock Springs"; and Allan Gurganus, "Minor Heroism."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Editor Wolff (This Boy's Life, LJ 1/89) describes the stories he selected for this volume as representing a reaction to the postmodern, self-conscious fictional attitude emerging from the Sixties. Realistic and convincing, these voices of the past decade and a half create a sense of kinship that remains with readers as insistently as do their own memories. This collection gives us 33 well-chosen stories. Side by side with classics by favorite writers-Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Richard Ford-are recent contributions by Dennis Johnson, Allan Gurganus, Thom Jones, and others. While these diverse stories defy categorization as an identifiable trend in writing, they do share exuberance and clarity, offering depictions of often painful contemporary situations softened by humor and honesty. Highly recommended.
Eleanor Mitchell Arizona State Univ., West Phoenix
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

For an enthralling collection that includes such classics as Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," "The Fat Girl" by Andre Dubus, "A Vintage Thunderbird" by Ann Beattie, and the more recent "Rules of the Game" from Amy Tan's book The Joy Luck Club, Wolff has selected finely crafted stories by writers at the peak of their form. In addition, Kate Braverman's contribution is a consummate example of the intensely realized situations all these stories unfailingly deliver. Her protagonist's powerful attraction to Lenny, a sleazy yet seductive hood, demonstrates a capacity for self-destruction that reverberates long after reading "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta." These satisfying stories validate the robust state of affairs of contemporary short fiction. Alice Joyce

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (September 6, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679745130
• ISBN-13: 978-0679745136
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Anthologies
  • #55 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Wolff sure can pick 'em!, March 8, 2001

By 

M. Wegley "lit prof" (Puyallup, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (Paperback)

Tobias Wollf, himself an excellent practitioner of the short story, does not include a work of his own in this wonderful collection (save a very thoughtful introduction). This is one of the most well edited collections of contemporary short stories on the market. It may be a few years old by now, but most of the "must read" writers, as well as surprisingly good lesser-knowns are included. Raymond Carver and Andre Dubus, sadly no longer contemporary in the strict sense, live on within these pages alongside excellent new voices. Two stories that really stand out for me are John L'Heureux's "Departures," a very deep and moving narrative, and Ralph Lombreglia's "Men Under Water," a beautiful alchemy of the dreams and realities of contemporary life. The selections written by Jamaica Kincaid, Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O'Brien, and Denis Johnson are so well picked, they seem to capture a bit of the authors themselves, as well as a portion of their writing. Because of these atttributes, I think the Vintage Book of Contempory Short Stories is both valuable for personal collections and for use in the classroom. It does the job that all compilations are supposed to, but seldom do, accomplish. It exemplifies the current breadth and depth of this contemporary artform.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serious literature with grit, March 17, 2001

By 

"litmag01" (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (Paperback)

"The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories" speaks with the intensity of liquor and fists. It lets loose on the gut of America.

Tobias Wolff, one of America's hardest hitting fiction writers, ("The Night in Question: Stories" and "In the Garden of North American Martyrs") has hammered together one of the best collections of modern fiction--far better than any individual "Best of..." collection.

If you are drawn, like me, to the intensity and disillusionment present in American literature at the turn of the century (i.e. Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald) this book may be what you have been looking for in contemporary writers. Including such staples of the contemporary cannon as Raymond Carver, Andre Dubuse, Amy Tan, Joyce Carol Oates this book packs in the best of modern short fiction and restores the genre to its former revered status.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Story Anthologies Currently Available., May 14, 2000

By 

Chris Parker - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (Paperback)

If you're tired of the predictable mediocrity of most of the short story collections flooding today's market I encourage you to pick this book up, it may open your eyes up to some of the more overlooked story writers of today. Tobias Wolff does a great job combining some of the finest mainstream stories of the later part of the 20th century with some less predictable, more intriguing selections. The result a consistently excellent collection.

Among the many highlights in the collection, among them Kate Braverman's hypnotic "Tall Tales From the Mekong Delta", Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" in which Carver actually takes a step toward justifying the hype surrounding often over rated work, Mary Gaitskill's "A Romantic Weekend" a take on sadomasochism that is at once cold and humorous, Barry Hannah's "Testimony of Pilot", Thom Jones' "A White Horse", Robert Stone's "Helping", and John Edgar Wideman's "Daddy Garbage", but the two highest points of the collection, as they would be in any other collection, are Denis Johnson's "Emergency" and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried". The first, from Johnson's indispensable collection "Jesus' Son", is halucinogenic, unnerving and beautiful. In "Emergency" Denis Johnson reveals his uncanny ability to draw the reader into the fabric of his story to the point where one believes that he is an actual physical observer of the events portrayed. Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" is equally evocative, but in a much more overt and emotional way. O'Brien does a brilliant job of portaying his group of American foot soldiers in Vietnam and his descriptions are so exact that we can't help but feel the fear and emotional strain he describes.

The rest of the collection is strong with a few exceptions. "River of Names" by Dorothy Allison is shallow and not at all up to par with some of her other work. "Darling" by Scott Bradfield starts off wonderfully but ultimately disappoints by overdosing on its own bitter medicine. Even so, there is so much good material in this collection that we owe a great debt to Mr. Wolff for making it so readily available.