The Best American Short Stories 2015

by T. C. Boyle (Editor), Heidi Pitlor (Editor)

Overview

The acclaimed author presents an anthology of “confrontational and at times confounding . . . stories to get lost in” by Colum McCann, Victor Lodato and others (Kirkus Reviews).
 
In his introduction to this one hundredth volume of the beloved Best American Short Stories, guest editor T. C. Boyle writes, “The Model T gave way to the Model A and to the Ferrari and the Prius . . . modernism to postmodernism and post-postmodernism. We advance. We progress. We move on. But we are part of a tradition.”
 
Boyle’s choices of stories reflect a vibrant range of characters, from a numb wife who feels alive only in the presence of violence to a new widower coming to terms with his sudden freedom, from a missing child to a champion speedboat racer. These stories will grab hold and surprise, which according to Boyle is “what the best fiction offers, and there was no shortage of such in this year’s selections.”
 
The Best American Short Stories 2011 includes entries by Denis Johnson, Louise Erdrich, Elizabeth McCracken, Aria Beth Sloss, Thomas McGuane, and others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547939438
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	12/15/2020
Series:	Best American Short Stories Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	418
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

T.C. BOYLE is the acclaimed author of World’s End (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award) and Drop City (finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller) among many others. His recent short story collections include Tooth and Claw and The Human Fly and Other Stories. His short stories regularly appear in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s.HEIDI PITLOR is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has been the series editor for The Best American Short Stories since 2007. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays and The Daylight Marriage.

Hometown:

Santa Barbara California

Date of Birth:

December 2, 1948

Place of Birth:

Peekskill, New York

Education:

B.A. in music, State University of New York at Potsdam, 1970; Ph.D. in literature, Iowa University, 1977

Website:

http://www.tcboyle.com/

Editorial Reviews

"Confrontational and at times confounding, these are stories to get lost in, then gratefully chart a path homeward." —Kirkus Reviews —

From the Publisher

2015-08-17
These stories thrive on discomfort, so much so that each small kindness registers as a minor miracle. Editor Boyle favors dark tales, but they often have strange, bright moments. In Kevin Canty's "Happy Endings," a widower's worldview expands after he finds comfort in a massage parlor. "Unsafe at Any Speed" by Laura Lee Smith offers a cowed husband, father, and employee a one-day respite from ass-kissing via a highly spontaneous crime spree. There's a jittery veteran untethered from space and time ("The Fugue" by Arna Bontemps Hemenway) and one calmly using his prosthesis to shut down a dinner party ("The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" by Denis Johnson). Victor Lodato's "Jack, July" spends a hot, haunting day with a young man in need of a meth fix. As is common with this series, the authors' notes at the end include insight from each about the inspiration and process behind his or her chosen works. Jess Walter describes "Mr. Voice," the final story and a strikingly upbeat one, as all following from a perfect first line. Its 1970s setting and protagonist—a teen girl finding stability with her unusual stepfather—are a pleasing counterpoint to the downbeat and downtrodden who sometimes overwhelm this volume. Stories of children lost, then found, ("Sh'khol" by Colum McCann and "Thunderstruck" by Elizabeth McCracken) seem like they would resolve happily, but be not fooled. In the first, joy and relief immediately turn to suspicion and then a sense of greater loss; the second finds a family so fractured by what happened it's unclear whether they'll heal in its wake. Five of the 20 stories chosen first appeared in The New Yorker, and the others share their preference for occasional inscrutability. Many also test the boundaries of "short," nearly novellas in terms of length and scope. Confrontational and at times confounding, these are stories to get lost in, then gratefully chart a path homeward.

Kirkus Reviews