Customer Reviews

The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories

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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.

"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.

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.

It's a shame that short stories are a somewhat forgotten genre these days, because when they are good (as these ones are), they can contain the joy, profundity and impact of much longer works, without the necessity of hours of time commitment. There are too many first-rate stories in here to make individual remarks practical, but I would offer a general salute to Tobias Wolff, the editor, for making almost uniformly first-rate selections.

I've had to pace myself going through the book because almost without exception, each story bears pondering. And in addition to the intrinsic merit of the stories themselves, a volume like this also has the singular advantage of exposing one to many undiscovered authors, greatly broadening one's literary horizons.

This is a wonderful collection. There are several standouts and several surprises. I was not surprised by how much I enjoyed the work of Dorothy Allison, Richard Bausch, Raymond Carver, and Tim O'Brien among a few others. They are fantastic writers that I have been previously introduced to and was eager to return. But I was very pleased to discover a few unfamiliar voices: Ann Beattie, Carol Bly, Kate Braverman, Stephanie Vaughn, among others.
If you enjoy short stories, give this selection consideration.

Wolff's collection of contemporary American stories serves as an excellent springboard for teaching high school students modern fiction. An excellent teaching tool. And the students enjoy the stories almost as much as the teacher

This is one of the best collections of contemporary American fiction. Every story is top-notch, and Wolff included a few authors I'd never heard of before (such as Braverman and Dybek, two writers whose short story collections I've since sought out). I was also surprised at how this collection didn't sag at all--it was strong right to the end.

This book is a keeper.

Also recommended: How to Lose Your Faith in Divinity School

This collection of short stories from Vintage, introduced and edited by Tobias Wolfe, has enough great stories like Cathedral, The Things They Carried, Lawns, A Romantic Weekend and others tomake up for the occaisonal story that seems over the top, like River of Names, which I found vaguely offensive in the way it made the subject of child abuse unintentionally amusin by basically into a bad parody of Southern Gothic. Other than that, the collection is quite good, with stories that I enjoyed reading several times. All of the stories are pretty depressing, however.

Each story was carefully selected. The characters in the stories are amazing and put a humorous spin on dysfunctional situations.

books that I have had to buy for a class, most of the short stories are pretty enjoyable.