2024 the best short story review

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“Twenty masterfully crafted short stories” by T.C. Boyle, Emma Cline, Mary Gaitskill, and more: “Outstanding and well worth the read.” —Booklist (starred review)

“To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time,” recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. “They were windows into emotions I had and hadn’t had, into other settings and circumstances and observations and relationships.”

Decades later, Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year’s edition. The result is a striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To read these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish. 

The Best American Short Stories 2020 includes selections by:

T. C. BOYLE • EMMA CLINE • MARY GAITSKILL • ANDREA LEE • ELIZABETH McCRACKEN • ALEJANDRO PUYANA • WILLIAM PEI SHIH • KEVIN WILSON • JANE PEK • CAROLYN FERRELL • SCOTT NADELSON • MENG JIN • and more

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B081TR5J7N
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (November 3, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 3, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5751 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 498 pages
Reviewer: Dr.C.J.Singh.Wallia
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Best American LITERARY Short Stories 2020
Review: 5 out of 5 starsReviewed in the United States on November 7, 2020THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2020Selected by CURTIS SITTENFELD with HEIDI PITLORReviewed by C. J. Singh Wallia (Berkeley, California)**** HEIDI PITLOR is the co-editor, since 2007, of The BestAmerican Short Stories (BASS) published annually. She is also theco-editor with LORRIE MOORE of "100 Years of the BestAmerican Short Stories." (See my amazon-review of this 723-pagebook with Heidi Pitlor's engaging introductions, instructive andwitty, for each decade. In my Creative Writing workshops, Iassign the big BASS book for self-learning and the current BASS fordetailed discussions.)**** Heidi Pitlor In her three-page Foreword in BASS 2020writes: "Inevitably, much of the world will define 2020 as theyear of the coronavirus pandemic; most of us have beenordered to stay at home for an undefined amount of time toslow the spread of the virus. Many independent bookstores, thesoul of the publishing industry, are shipping books and offeringvirtual events. To my mind the stories that follow areengrossing and sharp and thought provoking and beautiful."***In reading the BASS 2020, I was already familiar with six of the twentyshort stories: two in "The New Yorker," two in "The Paris Review,"one in "McSweeny's," one in "The Zoetrope: All Story." After completingmy Kindle reading of the BASS 2020, I fully agree with Heidi Pitlor the twentystories are indeed "engrossing and sharp." Pitlor lists (on pages 369-370) morethan 100 American and Canadian magazines from which she selects 120 storiesfor the co-editor to pick the best 20. The Best American Series comprises bookson many genre: Essays, Mystery Stories,Science Fiction and Fantasy, Science and Nature Writing, Travel Writing, and more. Having read more than a dozen BASSannuals over as many years, may I suggest a more accurate title would be:THE BEST AMERICAN LITERARY SHORT STORIES 2XXX."**** CURTIS SITTENFELD begins her nine-page Introduction: "I loved readingthese stories. I'm telling you this up front, right away, because it's the mostimportant part, and because I can't be sure you'll read this essay in its entirety."(After reading her excellent essay, I plan to ask my Creative-Writing Workshopparticipants to read for discussion her introduction "in its entirety," beginningwith her experience as a graduate student in the Iowa Writers' Workshopin 1999.)*** Curtis Sittenfeld's criteria for selecting the 20 best stories from the 120Pitlor sent her included: "A good ending -- a good last paragraph can make astory better by several magnitudes"; "A sense of humor is always a bonus withdinner companions, so it is with short stories; " (It's also my preference increative-writing); dystopian story must not be merely dystopian -- it must alsobe a story.*** Curtis Sittenfeld tells us the specific reason for each story she choseas one of the 20 best: for example, "I loved 'Halloween' by Marian Crottybecause her portrayal of teenage longing and romantic tension is so real andalive and because the grandmother is irresistible." Sittenfeld, charmngly, beginseach selection "I loved 'xxx' because..."**** ALLOW me as a reviewer of the BASS 2020 to add my brief notes on five short stories. The particular five stories chosen by readers to comment on will,of course, be idiosyncratically different.*** 1. Meng Jin's "In the Event." In the BASS 2020 Contributors' notes,Meng Jin, a resident of San Francisco City, comments on her story as"an attempt at navigating this 'disasterscape' and of finding insideit a place of meaning and art." She succeeds impressively.My note: I'm a long-time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, first atStanford, now at Berkeley. Only a few nights ago, I woke up and saw throughthe eastern window of my apartment in the MarkTwainCondominiums theentire Berkeley Hills horizon fiery red, fanned by ferocious, roaring winds. Thison top of the Bay Area residents' perennial hazard of earth-quakes. My neighbormuttered, "Very Scary." "Wonderful," I said to him loudly -- he's familiar with myironic humor -- "Now, we have a blazing sky on top of our trembling earth."**** 2. Scott Nadelson's "Liberte" is about Celine, a French medical doctorand an acclaimed literary writer of the early twentieth century andLouise Nevelson, a young, aspiring Jewish artist. In the 1930s, during theHitler era, Celine publicly urges the French to send all Jews out of France andat the same time urges Louise to marry him and live in France as an artist.My note: This reminded me reading about the German philosopher MartinHeidegger at Freiburg University ousting his Jewish professor, Edmund Husserl, the pioneer of Phenomenology and Cognitive Psychology. Heidegger, a Nazisupporter, the father of two sons, at age 35 seduced a17-year Jewishstudent, Hannah Arendt. Decades later, in America, Hannah Arendt publishedher book"The Banality of Evil."**** 3. Sarah Thankam Mathews' "Rubberdust" engaged me because I, like her,grew up in India. Reading her insertions of the way some of the words arepronounced in Indian-English sounded delightfully reminiscent. Toward the endof her short story, she writes about Mohandas Gandhi's talisman and thehistorically factual details of his not-so-well known shortcomings. I particularlyliked Mathews' discussion of her story in a workshop setting -- "meta" writing asnoted by Sittenfeld. My current work-in-progress includes lot of meta-fiction.**** 4. T. C. Boyle's "The Apartment." Replete with ironic dialogues, itis a very engaging short story. I'm a long-time fan of his writings and haveheard him on many occasions read excerpts at various SanFrancisco Bay Areabookstores.**** 5. William Pei Shih's "Enlightenment" engaged me for theprotagonist's and his foil's good intentions but weak understanding of eachother. Shih's excellent characterization and pacing remarkably welldone.*-----------------------CONTENTS of The Best American Short Stories 2020:Foreword ixIntroduction xiiSelena Anderson. "Godmother Tea" from "Oxford American" 1T. C. Boyle. "The Apartment" from "McSweeny's" 19Jason Brown. "A Faithful but Melancholy Account"" "The Sewanee Review"3Michael Byers. "Sibling Rivalry" from "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet" 54Emma Cline. "The Nanny" from "The Paris Review" 78Marian Crotty. "Halloween" from "Crazyhorse" 94Carolyn Ferrell. "Something Street" from "Story" 109Mary Gaitskill. "This Is Pleasure" from "The New Yorker" 133Meng Jin. "In the Event" from "The Three Penny Review" 168Andrea Lee. "The Children" from "The New Yorker" 188Sarah Thankam Mathews. Rubberdust from "Kenyon Review Online" 202Elizabeth McCracken. "It's Not You" from "Zoetrope: All-Story" 209Scott Nadelson. 'Liberte" from "Chicago Quarterly Review" 222Leigh Newman. "Howl Palace" from "The Paris Review" 232Jane Pek. "The Nine-Tailed Fox Explains" from "Witness" 249Alejandro Puyana. "The Hands of Dirty Children" "American Short Fiction" 260Anna Reeser. "Octopus V11" from "Fourteen Hills" 273William Pei Shih. "Enlightenment" from "Virginia Quarterly Review" 289Kevin Wilson. "Kennedy" from "Subtropics" 308Tiphanie Yanique. "The Special World" from "The Georgia Review" 329Contributors' Notes 349Other Distinguished Stories of 2019 365American and Canadian Magazines Publishing Short Stories 369Five gold-stars for The Best American Literary Short Stories 2020 -- C. J. Singh Wallia

Reviewer: D. H. Schleicher
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Typical Mixed Bag but with Some Strong, Bright Suprises
Review: These collections are almost always a mixed bag whose impact depends largely on how much the special guest editor's taste aligns with any given reader. This one is no different, and while the last half dozen stories seemed to be discarded from last year's mostly off-putting collection, the earlier standouts were especially strong and plentiful. Overall, I enjoyed the mix of different styles, themes, and span of older (well-established) and newer voices.My personal favorites from this year:• The Apartment by T.C. Boyle (always love Boyle's dark, sardonic sense of humor, and the Parisian setting was icing on the cake)• Sibling Rivalry by Michael Byers (excellent piece of speculative fiction)• In the Event by Meng Jin (featuring earthquakes real and emotional)• The Children by Andrea Lee (possibly my favorite - I could see this unique and exotic milieu setting the stage for a whole novel)• Howl Palace by Leigh Newman (loved the Alaskan setting and the little surprises slowly revealed)

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great buy!
Review: Fabulous compilation of the latest and greatest in short fiction. Must read for contemporary lit majors/English students. Stay up to date!! Im planning on purchasing previous years’ editions.

Reviewer: Megan
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Mixed bag of short stories
Review: My usual reading is in genre, often ranging into pulp. Knowing it's good to challenge the mind, I picked up this book of American short stories because they were on sale for a good price. These are literary "feeling" type of stories for the most part, where not much in the way of external action happens. It's all interior, the lives and seemingly mundane stakes of this or that character. Because there's no alien invasion to fight back, or dragon to ride, or monster to flee from, the poor quality of some of these stories is glaring.A lot of them, I didn't see the point. There's notes from the authors at the back that I think explain where the stories came from, but if an author has to explain it, they failed. I didn't bother to read that part.What was nice was the diversity of voices the editor tried to put together.First we have Godmother Tea, which is a navel-gazer about a POC woman who feels like she's losing herself. Or something like that. This one feels autobiographical in a way, which makes it all the more nauseating for the poor quality.Then there's The Apartment, which is a story about a man who bets a good sum of money every month on an old woman's apartment. He wants that apartment because he feels crowded with his wife and children in his current apartment. This one was very well done. Great characterization and pacing, snappy prose.Third we have A Faithful But Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed, which features a fake wedding and a father who tries to will himself dead. This story is more about the dynamics between a family. It wasn't bad or good, mainly forgettable.Following the third is my favorite, Sibling Rivalry, for certain because it's in my favorite genre: sci-fi. The story centers around a society that has implemented a one-child rule. In order to have another child, you can get a Synth, essentially a very intelligent android. Oddly enough, the parents in this story wants to be hands off with their kids. The consequences will be dire and the story is for sure a warning in this age of AI that we can't turn our backs on our machines, no matter how intelligent they may become.Then there's the Nanny, a forgettable and not very good story, followed by Halloween, in which the gay narrator is exposed to her grandmother's "f-d up ideas about love" and gets played.Something Street is hard to get into because of the prose but is very much worth it. It's about the downfall of a comedian named Craw Daddy and his wife. The story is told from the wife's perspective. She tries to stand up for her husband, but as "Complaints" pile up, she can no longer ignore the truth.This is Pleasure is perhaps one of the more provocative stories. It features Quin, a man with absolutely no sense of boundaries around women. Over the course of the story, the women he helped (supposedly) turn on him. Quin points out that the women often participated in inappropriate behavior with him, but even as Quin seems to understand these women, he also lacks a surprising amount of insight and it's hard to tell what the author was trying to achieve. If she wanted me to think, it worked.In the Event: Chinaman's Vista is San Fransisco. You're welcome. This story is about feeling insecure about the world, with the fear of earthquakes and other external disasters mirroring the fear within.The Children was so awful I skipped it after five or six pages.Rubberdust wasn't a terrible story. At the same time, it was so unremarkable that I don't remember what it's about even though I read it yesterday.It's Not You is unremarkable except for the part where the narrator nearly drowns herself.Liberté is about a Jewish woman named Louise who divorces her husband and abandons her child to fly to Europe just a little before Hitler's rise to power. Louise is such an incredibly impotent, pathetic character that you wish the author had never thought her up.Howl Palace is about an older woman who's forced to sell her home and land. It turns out to be difficult because of a not-so-secret room in the home. The characters were relatable, there was a bit of drama to keep things moving, and it was emotional without tugging at your heart strings.The Nine-Tailed Fox Explains is decent prose that has no real plot (or at least a weak one that doesn't draw the attention) connected to it. In this "story", a disguised Kitsune guides her husband toward his true love, except most of the "story" is just the Kitsune reflecting on things. In the process, we learn a bit about the Kitsune's history, how she passed up reincarnation, etc. You get to see the mortal world from the perspective of an immortal.The Hands of Dirty Children is a story about the Crazy 9, a group of dirty, thieving, sometimes borderline-desperate children in Venezuela. It focuses mainly on the narrator, and the sickly Ramoncito, who sort of represents the lost innocence and the life-happening-all-at-once that much occur to children like him. This one lingered in my mind for a bit. This is a reality in some parts of the world.Octopus VII is about a stuck-up artist who realizes his true calling is more mundane than he thought. Enlightenment was so bad that I skipped it.Kennedy is a disturbing story about a bully with a very odd fixation. Ben and the narrator are almost as pathetic as Louise, but at least they have age to give them an excuse.The Special World is about Fly, a navel-gazing stuck-up in college. He's lonely, and feels lucky for awhile to meet Suzanne, until the RA brings up her proclivities. This is while Fly's family is falling apart at home.Overall, unless you can get this one for a buck or two, skip it. The bad and "meh" stories outweigh the good ones.

Reviewer: Barbara
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: really, the best
Review: Wonderful stories!

Reviewer: David Roop
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Every Time
Review: I read this anthology I ask myself "Why do I ever miss a year? What could be more insightful or artistic than these ever ripe plums from dessicated trees slipping off barren land into an ocean of straws and waste.

Reviewer: John
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good Collection
Review: Good collection of stories, pretty broad range of setting and characters. The themes were not as compelling as previous years, but the pace and tenor were rewarding.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Not a dud in the bunch
Review: If you love short stories, this well-curated collection is for you! There’s always time to read a short story, no matter how busy one is.

Reviewer: Freddy416
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I’ve been reading this Best American short story collection since 1995 and this edition I like the least or second least. I have read 5 stories so far and I think how can these stories be the best of the year?. There have got to be better ones. I usually think that about 1 or 2 stories each year but this year all 5 have me questioning the selection. I think a clue is in the introduction where it says things like women’s voices are not heard. If you like reading stories about women as victims and men as stupid maybe you will enjoy them. I hope I’m wrong and they get better in the next 15.Well I've read 16 now. There have been a few goods ones. The stories all have a common theme. Women as heroes and women as victims, men as bad and men as stupid. The guest editor talks of her privilege in the introduction and there is one comment about her politics. These stories all reinforce the guest editor's view of the world and if you don't share that view, you will find the stories irritating and unpleasant to and contractdictory to your sense of reality.For one story the guest editor says she picked it because of the privilege of money and gender. I can't see how there was any privilege of gender; unless she meant the privilege of the female gender to break up with her boyfriend without telling him. - But she probably means the boyfriends privilege somehow.

Reviewer: Fernando Irueste
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Una mala antología.

Reviewer: Amazon カスタマー
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I read this book as one of an American short stories reading circle members.We all are enjoying to learn how the present authors write about American lives.