Prize Stories 1987: The O'Henry Awards

by William Abrahams

Overview

Established in 1918 as a memorial to the master of the short story genre, O. Henry, Prize Stories has long been recognized as the premier forum for the contemporary story. The 1987 volume carries forth the time-honored literary tradition in 20 selections as original and varied as the current trends in short fiction. The top prize for 1987 is jointly awarded to Louise Erdrich for “Fleur” and Joyce Johnson for “The Children’s Wing.”

Other stories include:
Robert Boswell “The Darkness of Love”
Alice Adams “Tide Pools”
Stuart Dybek “Blight”
James Lott “The Janeites”
Donald Barthelme “Basil from Her Garden”
Gina Berriault “The Island of Ven”
Jim Pitzen “The Village”
Richard Bausch “What Feels Like the World”
Millicient Dillon “Monitor”
Norman Lavers “Big Dog”
Robert Taylor, Jr. “Lady of Spain”
Helen Norris “The Singing Well”
Grace Paley “Midrash on Happiness”
Lewis Horne “Taking Care”
Warren Wallace “Up Home”
Joyce Carol Oates “Ancient Airs, Voices”
Daniel Stern “The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud: A Story”
Mary Robison “I Get By”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385235952
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/18/1987
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Born in 1919, William Abrahams published four successful novels and a number of poems before finding his true calling as an editor. He presided over the O. Henry Awards for more than 30 years starting in 1965. Abrahams also worked as the west coast editor of Atlantic Monthly Press and collaborated on nonfiction books with his partner, Peter Stansky. He passed away in 1998.

Editorial Reviews

The first prize in this 67th O. Henry Memorial Award omnibus is shared by two spare, unsentimental, authoritative first-person narratives that breathe life, respectively, into a Chippewa legend (Louise Erdrich's ``Fleur'') and a young boy's painful coming of age in a children's hospital ward (Joyce Johnson's ``The Children's Wing''). Polished pieces by veteran short-story writers Alice Adams, Donald Barthelme, Mary Robison and Joyce Carol Oates are overshadowed by the sheer energy and intensity of Robert Boswell's ``The Darkness of Love,'' which describes a man's self-hating, imprisoning affair with his wife's sister, and Jim Pitzen's ``The Village,'' a graphic, tense and ultimately wrenching tale of a loving friendship between two American soldiers in Vietnam. Some stellar selections focus on aging, including ``Big Dog'' by Norman Lavers, which keenly observes a long-standing symbiotic marriage, Helen Norris's ``The Singing Well'' and ``What Feels Like the World,'' by Richard Bausch, both of which beautifully depict grandfather-granddaughter relationships. Abrahams has edited the O. Henry anthologies since 1967. (April 17)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

These 20 stories are largely from mainstream magazines, generally conventional in technique and subject matter, and rich in both major and minor characters: the man whose wife leads him in and out of rooms ``like a sad, obedient dog,'' the boy whose mother is Polish and father Mexican (``it wasn't always an easy alliance, especially inside Pepper''), the girl Emilu who is named ``for two dead aunts, their names rammed together head-on like trains.'' There is outstanding work by Jim Pitzen, Richard Bausch, Norman Lavers, Robert Taylor, Jr., Helen Norris, Lewis Horne, and Joyce Carol Oates, though none has the impact of Robert Boswell's ``The Darkness of Love,'' an extended story about a burned-out cop's growing fascination with his wife's sister. For larger collections. David Kirby, English Dept., Florida State Univ., Tallahassee

Library Journal