The Best American Short Stories 1998 (Paperback)

~ (Editor), Katrina Kenison (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Each of these twenty stories surprised and delighted me. Each is a story I'd gladly read out loud to anyone who wanted to be read to," writes guest editor Garrison Keillor in his introduction to The Best American Short Stories 1998. We should be so lucky! Read out loud or not, this is still one of the liveliest, most varied volumes in this venerable series. One pleasant surprise is that it isn't as New Yorker-centric as it has been in years past. Readers will find stories by both long-established voices (John Updike, Annie Proulx) and exhilarating new talent (Poe Ballantine, Maxine Swann), first published in magazines that range from regional to slick. The subject matter is no less diverse: a couple in their 40s desperate to have a baby; Walt Whitman ministering to wounded Union soldiers; the vengeful ghost of a half-skinned bull. And then there's what was perhaps the year's most stunning piece of short fiction, Lorrie Moore's "People Like That Are the Only People Here" (published in her 1998 collection, Birds of America ), a gut-wrenching, unsentimental, and yes, funny account of a mother whose baby is diagnosed with liver cancer. From its opening image of blood in a diaper ("like a tiny mouse heart packed in snow") to its bitterly self-conscious conclusion ("There are the notes. Now, where is the money?"), this is storytelling at its most visceral and affecting. Moore's piece alone makes Best American worth the price of admission; combined with the 19 other tales here, it makes a convincing case for the continuing health of the American short story.

From Library Journal

This year's editions of two well-known fiction anthologies have some similarities but more differences. Three stories appear in both volumes, among them the first-prize winner in the Prize Stories (PS) volume: Lorrie Moore's harrowing, unsentimentalized account of a sick child, "People Like That Are the Only People Here." Each also includes a different Western by E. Annie Proulx. The other selections seem to reflect the particular tastes of the editors. Keillor states up front in his introduction to Best American Short Stories (BASS) that his choices cover "your basic age-old themes" and that he likes stories that tell him "something true about somebody's life." Those he has selected, though ranging widely in voice, character, and setting, are mostly character-driven, realistic tales of interactions between families, friends, or lovers. In PS, Dark, while not ignoring the themes favored by Keillor, has made room for more experimental fiction, including Steven Millhauser's surreal "The Knife Thrower" and Rick Bass's allegorical "The Myths of Bears." It's generally a riskier collection than BASS, though both volumes contain enough variety to offer readers something to love as well as hate. Recommended for most collections.AChristine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Idaho Lib., Moscow
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395875145
• ISBN-13: 978-0395875148
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #616,984 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This Year Look to Next Generation for Short Stories, January 13, 1999

By A Customer

As a short story lover and and die hard fan of THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES collections, I was surprisingly disappointed by this year's edition. With the exception of a couple stories ("Cosmopolitan" and "People Like That Are the Only People Here"),I found the stories to be boring, bland, and generally lacking any spark of life. I refer anyone interested in reading authors that push limits, bring unique points of view, and take risks to Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops 1998 by Carol Shields (Editor), John Kulka (Editor), Natalie Danford(Editor).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best yet!, January 1, 1999

By	Richard Reynolds "SWNovice" (Desert Hot Springs, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 1998 (Hardcover)

This year's edition of the always delightful collection of the years top short fiction is a special treat. Edited by Garrison Keilor, the stories have the warmth and realness one thinks of with Keilor and his own tales. I loved his choices because the were believable and because of the poetry of the language. So often I was struck by lines that would stop me in my tracks, I would have to laugh, or just sit in awe.

I also found the cleanness of most of the stories to be refreshing. They were stories of people overcoming the darker side of human nature, people "on the verge of disgrace," as one story said it. There were stories of people who resisted doing the bad things that usually make a story roll so smoothly. My hat is off to Keilor and to all the highly talented writers in this years volume!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great stories, June 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 1998 (Audio Cassette)

In this collection the focus is on great storytelling. You won't find lots of stylistic acrobatics and clever postmodern narrative techniques but you will find stories that are consistently moving and a joy to read. This is the most enjoyable collection of Best American Short Stories that I have read.

The audiotape is also fantastic with many of the stories being read by Garrison Keillor.