New American stories

Book - 2015

"Ben Marcus, one of the most innovative and vital writers of this generation, delivers a stellar anthology of the best short fiction being written today in America In New American Stories, Ben Marcus has collected a diverse, exciting, and wholly unique book of contemporary American fiction writers. Herein are the luminaries of the form like Deborah Eisenberg, George Saunders, and Denis Johnson, as well as the best new voices of today, like Wells Tower, Claire Vaye Watkins and Rivka Galchen. Practitioners of deep realism like Anthony Doerr and Yilun Li brush shoulders with genre-bending wonders like Charles Yu and Kelly Link. Finally there are the true emerging stars, like Tao Lin and Rachel Glasser standing next to long established wri...ter like Joy Williams. Nothing less than the American short story renaissance distilled down to its most relevant, daring, and interesting works, New American Stories puts on wide display the true art of the short story"--

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

813.01/New
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 813.01/New Checked In
Subjects
Published
New York : Vintage Books, A Division of Penguin Random House, LLC [2015]
Language
English
Physical Description
xxiii, 753 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780804173544
9780804173551
  • Introduction / Ben Marcus
  • Paranoia / Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
  • Slatland / Rebecca Lee
  • The early deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp, and Carr / Jesse Ball
  • Some other, better Otto / Deborah Eisenberg
  • The deep / Anthony Doerr
  • A man like him / Yiyun Li
  • Home / George Saunders
  • Shhhh / NoViolet Bulawayo
  • Special economics / Maureen McHugh
  • This appointment occurs in the past / Sam Lipsyte
  • Men / Lydia Davis
  • Another Manhattan / Donald Antrim
  • Meet the president! / Zadie Smith
  • The largesse of the sea maiden / Denis Johnson
  • The country / Joy Williams
  • A happy rural seat of various view : Lucinda's garden / Christine Schutt
  • Hammer and sickle / Don DeLillo
  • Play / Mathias Svalina
  • Madmen / Lucy Corin
  • The arms and legs of the lake / Mary Gaitskill
  • Raw water / Wells Tower
  • Pee on water / Rachel B. Glaser
  • Love is a thing on sale for more money than there exists / Tao Lin
  • The toast / Rebecca Curtis
  • Going for a beer / Robert Coover
  • Standard loneliness package / Charles Yu
  • Wait till you see me dance / Deb Olin Unferth
  • The lucky body / Kyle Coma-Thompson
  • The lost order / Rivka Galchen
  • Fish sticks / Donald Ray Pollock
  • Valley of the girls / Kelly Link
  • The diggings / Claire Vaye Watkins.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Middling collection of new stories, some by very old hands. First, the quibbles: as with so many anthologies, the editor serves up a vague, vaguely celebratory introduction that is short on criteria and long on puffery: "I sought stylistic and formal variety in the stories not to be fair, but because there seem to be endless ways, in fiction, to make the world come alive, to reckon with our time, to fearlessly reveal what's in front of us." Well, as the kids say, duh. And what of the fearful revelation? There's no room here for Stephen King, who's a sight more interesting to read, most days, than Rivka Galchen or Donald Antrim but who, not teaching in an MFA program somewhere, would seem not to qualify. Robert Coover we have, and George Saunders, whose work holds up sturdily but who is now a flavor of the month all the same; and is Zadie Smith an American writer by virtue of living part-time in Manhattan? Marcus doesn't do nearly enough to lay out the rules of the road. All that said, there are some excellent pieces in here. Saunders' contribution is a bleak coming-home story in which a returned veteran of the Asian wars lands stateside in what might as well be a country song, with Ma's new boyfriend insistently asking, "What's your worst thing you ever did over there?" The most completely realized and honest piece in the book, it drips with barely potent rage: "I stomped the carpet fire out and went over to Gleason Street, where Joy and the babies were living with Asshole." No mewling writing-instructor-in-existential-crisis piece can weather such competition. Coover's story is similarly very good, inventive in its way of relating how time unfolds to a beer-clouded mind and packing a considerable amount of tragedy into just a few pages. The most entertaining, least mannered story comes from Kelly Link, who turns in a sci-fi tinged, note-perfect yarn of future discontent that would make Rod Serling smile. For students of the short story form, a handy gathering, though it's in need of more interpretation. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.