About book The Best American Mystery Stories 2005 (2005)
There were a few standout stories here for me, but mostly this felt like a big pile of Same. Basically, Joyce Carol Oates likes dark stories of the American working class underbelly, heavy on on-the-lam grifters and skeevy predators. No big surprise there, I guess. But I was surprised at how similar her picks were, tonally. After putting the book down I feel like I could have been reading one voice the whole time--and it was Dennis Lehane.That said, Louise Erdrich's story about a small town's dark past is a bright spot, as is David Rachel's "The Last Man I Killed," which breaks away from the field with a highly educated, crafty, and unreliable academic narrator. Daniel Handler's "Delmonico," which I'd read somewhere else previously, is a clever and atmospheric tale that's neither grisly nor perverse. Hooray. The rest of the stories in the collection are well-told--in particular, Scott Wolven's "Barracuda" and George V. Higgins's "Jack Duggan's Law" are sharp as knives--but they didn't really grab me. And I was surprised at how little actual mystery there is here. Is "mystery" now code for "crime thriller?" Maybe so, or maybe it was just JCO's tastes skewing that direction.Speaking of editorial picks, out of a TOC of 20 stories, care to guess how many were by women? Yeah. Two. I guess women don't write or read mysteries, crime fiction, noir, or thrillers. One is by Louise Erdrich, one by Laura Lippman. I counted up the names in the 2007 edition (Carl Hiassen, Ed.), which is the next one on my desk. Out of another 20 stories, three are by women. Care to guess who they are? Louise Erdrich, Laura Lippman. And Joyce Carol Oates.That's kind of a noir-ish twist in itself, ain't it?
I picked this off my shelf thinking I hadn't read it, but apparently I'd had so this is my re-read review. The stories are great and in true JCO fashion, oftentimes more psychological thrillers/mysteries than what you would traditionally call a mystery story. I haven't read any of the other Best American Mystery collections so I don't have anything to compare it, but I really enjoyed this one. My favorite story is "Disaster Stamps of Pluto" by Louise Erdich about a town that's fading away and its last historic society member tells of her own tragic history.
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Quick points:- Easy to see how each story reflects Oates' personal history, which seems to influence her own writing- All worthwhile reads but here are the stories that stick with me: "The Identity Club" by Richard Burgin; "Delmonico" by Daniel Handler; "Jack Duggan's Law" by George V. Higgins; "The Shooting of John Roy Worth" by Stuart M. Kaminsky; "Until Gwen" by Dennis Lehane; "The Shoeshine Man's Regrets" by Laura Lippman; "Case Closed" by Lou Manfredo; "Public Trouble" by Kent Nelson; "Officers Weep" by Daniel Orozco; "The Last Man I Killed" by David Rachel; "One Mississippi" by Joseph Raiche; "The Love of a Strong Man" by Oz Spies.- I'm not going to attempt to provide a summary and analysis of these stories. I mean, how do you compete with Oates? Especially when she takes Edmund Wilson (!) to task for his characterization of mystery stories as being overwrought and focused too intently on the plot.
—Steven
