The Best American Short Stories Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Best American Short Stories Book

A great story gets its hooks into you right from the start; you know you're in the hands of a good writer when the very first sentence transports you wholly into another world. "Mother preferred Zulu servants." "It must be, Ruth thought, that she was going to die in the spring." "Who would have thought that a war of such proportions would bother to turn in its fury against the fools of Chelm?" The 21 fictions featured in The Best American Short Stories 1999 have very little in common--but whether they're about ranchers or commuters, romantic seekers or New Age pilgrims, what they do share is a sense of urgency. In each of them, there's a kind of voice that announces its need to be heard. "I'm not a bad guy," pleads the narrator of "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," and even though he cheats on his girlfriend, by the end of Junot Díaz's story you might be tempted to agree anyway. (Especially considering the charming way he turns Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener into a verb--as in, "A lot of the time she Bartlebys me, says, 'No, I'd rather not.'") "Real Estate," by that master of bittersweet comedy Lorrie Moore, starts by repeating "Ha! Ha! Ha!" for two solid pages but becomes a rueful take on marriage, house-hunting, and even death: "The body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body was like a sweet dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too, barked the dog." Other standouts in this collection include Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper," a kind of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" where no one is killed or saved; Rick Bass's haunting evocation of winter in the north country, "The Hermit's Story"; and Tim Gautreax's "The Piano Tuner," about a manic-depressive Creole princess playing cocktail piano in a motel lounge. (This is one tale that truly does end with a bang, not a whimper.) Taken together, they are ample evidence that the American short story is alive, well, and eminently able to--in the words of guest editor Amy Tan--"help us live interesting lives." --Chloe ByrneRead More

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  • Product Description

    "What I look for most in a story," writes Amy Tan in her introduction to this year's volume of The Best American Short Stories, "what I crave, what I found in these twenty-one, is a distinctive voice that tells a story only that voice can tell." Tan found herself drawn to wonderfully original stories that satisfied her appetite for the magic and mystery she loved as a child, when she was addicted to fairy tales. In this vibrant collection, fantasy and truth coexist brilliantly in new works by writers such as Annie Proulx, Lorrie Moore, Nathan Englander, and Pam Houston. "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," by Junot Diaz, features a young man trying to stave off heartbreak in a sacred cave in Santo Domingo. In "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter," by Chitra Divakaruni, a mother moves from India to California to be closer to her son, only to sacrifice something crucial along the way. In Melissa Hardy's haunting story "The Uncharted Heart," a geologist unearths a shocking secret in the wilds of northern Ontario. "Maybe I'm still that kid who wants to see things I've never seen before," writes Tan. "I like being startled by images I never could have conjured up myself." With twenty-one tales, each a fabulously rich journey into a different world, The Best American Short Stories 1999 is sure to surprise and delight.

  • 0395926831
  • 9780395926833
  • "Tan"
  • 20 September 2000
  • Houghton Mifflin (Trade)
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 320
  • 1999
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