We Are the Stories We Tell: The Best Short Stories by North American Women Since 1945 [Paperback]

Wendy Martin (Editor), Alice Walker (Contributor), Eudora Welty (Contributor), Ursula K. Le Guin (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1990

A collection of 26 of the finest stories by the finest women writers tocome out of the U.S. and Canada in the past 50 years. Authors include Ann Beattie, Ann Tyler, Tama Janowitz and Alice Walker.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A collection of 26 of the finest stories by the finest women writers tocome out of the U.S. and Canada in the past 50 years. Authors include Ann Beattie, Ann Tyler, Tama Janowitz and Alice Walker.

Product Details

• Paperback: 337 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (April 7, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679728813
• ISBN-13: 978-0679728818
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #366,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These Stories Long To Be Told, April 15, 2008

By 

Story Circle Book Reviews - See all my reviews

This review is from: We Are the Stories We Tell: The Best Short Stories by North American Women Since 1945 (Paperback)

Welcome to a smorgasbord of contemporary women's fiction; a complilation of 24 short stories as diverse as their authors. The reader gets to sample the works of writers like Alice Walker, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ursula LeGuin writing about subjects as varied as abortion and dance parties. The common thread in this anthology is that each piece speaks so directly and deeply to our lives as American women.

In her introduction, Wendy Martin stresses that she has attempted to give voice to the "female experience in all its complexity" by including women of African, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and Jewish descent, as well as those of European ancestry. She hopes the stories speak "to what has been silenced, repressed, and excluded in women's lives," and will remind us of the importance of remembering our personal and collective pasts.

From "Royal Beatings" by Alice Munro: "Looking out from her kitchen window at the cold lake, Rose was longing to tell somebody. It was Flo who would enjoy hearing. She thought of her saying 'Imagine!' in a way that meant she was having her worst suspicions gorgeously confirmed. But Flo was in the same place Hat Nettleton had died in, and there wasn't any way Rose could reach her."

Even though our experiences are so disparate, each story rings true. Some stories are disturbing, some are delightful; some bring us to tears, some make us laugh out loud--much like life itself.

These are stories that long to be told, and Martin has skillfully brought them together and given them an audience. In "No Place for You, My Love," Eudora Welty says, "A thing is incredible, if ever, only after it is told--returned to the world it came out of." Here are our stories, returned to us to delight in and ponder.

Wendy Martin is chair of the Department of English at the Claremont Graduate School and teaches American literature and American studies at Queens College, CUNY. She is the author of numerous articles and reviews on American women writers and early American literature and culture, and was a founder of "Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal", for which she is the editor. Her most recent book is An American Triptych: The Lives and Work of Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Adrienne Rich.

by Carolyn Blankenship
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Starts off somewhat slow..., April 14, 2007

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Sonic Reducer (Belmont, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: We Are the Stories We Tell: The Best Short Stories by North American Women Since 1945 (Paperback)

This is a collection of stories dealing with women writers from North America - and not all of them are your typical female literature. I didn't like first few stories, but then it picked up the pace when it came to stories of Flannery O'Conner & Joyce Carol Oates, as well as few lesser-known names. I'm sure that this will force the reader to pick up a book or two by some authors mentioned in the book.