About book The Best American Short Stories 2007 (2007)
In her foreword, Heidi Pitlor talks about what her first year as Series Editor was like (replacing the almost irreplacable Katrina Kennison), reading literally thousands of short stories published in American magazines in 2006 and whittling those thousands down the the hundred or so she passed on to Guest Editor Stephen King. It sounds like she was up to the task, but there's not a terrible amount of insight into the process (and perhaps, after all these years, there's not much a new Series Editor can say that doesn't parrot her predecessors). King's Introduction is fast and lively, bemoaning the state of the market for short stories (he gives a great description of where most magazines that cater to the short story enthusiast are found: on the bottom shelf of the magazine section of large bookstore chains, usually under the "lifestyles" magazines). His introduction has been reprinted this month at least once that I know of (I think it was a backpage of The New York Times Book Review, but it might have been his column for Entertainment Weekly).Then, on to the stories. There are twenty, arranged in alphabetical order by author's last name. That fact intrigues me only because the last two stories in the volume were the two I enjoyed the least. I forced myself through Jim Shepard's "Sans Farine" (it's about the inner life of the Chief Executioner during the French Revolution, a subject I thought would interest me but which didn't); I took Kate Walbert's "Do Something" more as a battle-cry against the secrecy surrounding the War In Iraq than as a treatise on loss, despite an interesting main character who describes her son's death from cancer as "my own 9-11. We all have our very own. Don't you agree?"So which stories did I like? Pretty all of the rest, although I will pick out a few by name. (Interestingly enough, as I flip back through Uncle Stevie's Introduction for the first time in two months, I see that he picked these same stories out by name.) John Barth's "Toga Party," part of a cycle he's writing on life in an over-55 community, packs a great sucker-punch ending that you kind of see coming and still can't pull your eyes from; Alice Munro's "Dimension" (which I remember reading in The New Yorker) similarly has a moment where you realize what it is the main character (and the narrator) are leaving unsaid, and you hope you're wrong about it, until the reveal which slaps you in the face with the raw lack of emotion that comes from shock; Randy DeVita's "Riding The Doghouse" is the closest this collection gets to a horror story, all full of dread and fear; and Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" is the closest the collection comes to fantasy / fairy tale, using the offspring of werewolves being acclimated to human society as an analogy for the unique culture minorities lose when melded into one another. There is also one quasi-science fiction story, "The Boy in Zaquitos" by Bruce McAllister, just to give us a three-in-twenty "genre" representation, which is probably more than most previous years.It's an anthology well worth reading, although like me you'll probably want to spread the stories out over a fair amount of time and not try to devour them all in a sitting or two.
I asked a friend if he had read anything by Karen Russell and he responded by giving me two of the Best American Short Stories anthologies, one of which is this one from 2007. Unfortunately, most of the stories in here are pretty bland. I don't know if that's due to Stephen King being a poor editor or 2007 just being a mediocre year for short stories; either way, most of the stories in this collection are not bad but not astounding, either. The problem with this anthology is that almost all of the stories deal with death in some way, ranging the gamut from suicide to murder to simply dying of old age. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it gets a little tiring to read story after story about death. There are very few lighthearted stories here, which only reinforces this prevalent notion in literature that in order to be a good writer you have to talk about Very Serious themes such as death. I'm sure Stephen King's role as editor and his predisposition towards the macabre had something to do with this as well.The few stand-outs in this collection:TC Boyle, "Balto" - a 13 year old girl has to drive her father and sister home when her father is too drunk to drive. On the way she hits a boy on a bike and is faced with the decision of whether or not to lie and say that she wasn't driving to prevent her sister and her from being taken away from her father.William Gay, "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?" - a man dealing with his grief after the death of the woman he lovedRoy Kesey, "Wait" - the only outright humorous story in this anthology, "Wait" shows how people deal with being stuck in an airport after a fog prevents the plane from taking off.Alice Munro, "Dimension" - a woman coming to terms with the death of her three children at the hands of their father.Karen Russell, "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" - this is exactly what you'd expect from the title.
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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been boycotting short stories for the last couple of years. It's hard to explain why. I actually prefer semi-ambiguous endings, and I prefer the literary and lyrical over the straight-up entertainment type of reading. But I began to feel that every short story I read was "too writer-ly," that the author was being weird just to be weird, or that the ambiguity of the larger meaning of the story was dissatisfying rather than stirring or thought-provoking. Oh, and not to mention, too many of them were dark and depressing--and again, I *like* the darker fair most of the time.So it was probably good timing that, when I found this series entry on a clearance table, I picked up the 2007 year, with Stephen King as edition editor. Not only were all of the stories in this edition accessible and straightforward, but also, King's intro essay actually addresses the "too writerly" trend (my words, not his. Read his essay to see what he's really trying to say. I'm doing a quick and dirty stab at this here.) Anyway, it's hard to explain how this edition is different, but I've been reading this Best Of series on and off since the mid 90s, and this book definitely had a different feel than all the others I've read--and yet the stories are still literary, and still feature some of the biggest names in contemporary literature, like Alice Munro, T.C. Boyle and Richard Russo.That said, I didn't find many of them to be as memorable or as moving as I have with "Best Of" stories in the past. With one exception:The story "Findings & Impressions" by Stellar Kim almost literally took my breath away. I found myself sobbing at the end, which is not something that happens often. (I might tear up fairly frequently at movies, but short stores? No.) Perhaps this one just caused me to "project" too much, since the main character is stricken with terminal cancer at my exact current age. It was so stirring I felt compelled to keep reading and yet had to stop and set it down every few minutes-- I wanted to savor it and yet was "afraid" (not in the typical sense associated with Stephen King) to know what was going to happen.
—Alison
This is the third volume in the Best American Short Stories Series that I've read cover to cover. And it's a consistent collection. There are a few real head-turners (Lauren Groff's "L. Debard and Aliette: A Love Story" and Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves" are my favorites), and there are a few stinkers, but for the most part this anthology is populated by solid if not particularly memorable pieces of short fiction.I could write for a while about a few of the stories but what I've found more interesting is what those stories reveal about Stephen King, the man who chose them. In his introduction King explains that the stories he has chosen are the ones he felt most compelled to share. The ones that made him say, "Oh man, you gotta read this!" This probably explains the inclusion of stories that shock but are not particularly well-written. There's one about a dying man who has pretended his entire adult life that he is Jewish but in fact has never been circumcised and who asks on his deathbed that his forty-something son arrange his bris. Yes, I found myself infected with King's desire to share the story's bizarre set-up with other people. No, I did not particularly like the story itself. Maybe I ask too much.Inevitably I pit this volume against the other two I have read, and it falls comfortably in the middle. Unfortunately, it lacks the glee and energy of Michael Chabon's stellar 2005 volume. Fortunately, however, it also lacks the "awe of the mundane" that characterized Garrison Keillor's snooze-inducing 1998 volume. If I have taken anything valuable away from the experience of reading (and in some cases trudging through) this anthology, it is confirmation of my suspicion that short story anthologies have very little to do with the stories themselves but everything to do with the person charged with their selection.
—Dusty
This really didn't click for me until about the sixth story, My Brother Eli by Joseph Epstein, but after that they were pretty great with two exceptions. Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You by William Gay which I really wanted to like for the title alone and Sans Farine by Jim Shepard, a more boring story about the rise of the guillotine I cant imagine.Lauren Groff's L. Debard and Aliette: A Love Story and Stellar Kim's Findings and Impressions pack more punch into 25 pages or less than most novels do in hundreds. Karen Russell's St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is about exactly what you think it is and it's awesome. All of the stories have at least one scene or line that's pretty gruesome, which I guess can only be expected with Stephen King doing the final selection.
—Brian Kennedy
