The Best American Short Stories 2020

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

If you enjoy reading short stories, treat yourself to any of the “The Best American Short Stories” annual anthologies. This is a particularly good one, which was guest edited by Curtis Sittenfeld, one of my favorite authors. Sittenfeld’s assignment was to spend four months reading 120 short stories that were published between January 2019 and January 2020 and then choose 20 for this volume.This is truly a literary collection, and it’s quite diverse. The authors are men, women, white, black, Asian, straight, and gay. The stories are staid and comfortable, as well as experimental and outlandish. Some are heartbreaking. Some are confusing. Some are almost otherworldly. Some are dystopian. Some are incredible.A few of the better-known authors in this 2020 edition are T.C. Boyle, Emma Cline, Meng Jin, Elizabeth McCracken, and Kevin Wilson, but the real delight for me is discovering authors that are new to me, such as Marian Crotty, Mary Gaitskill, and Alejandro Puyana.A sampling of my favorites or, at least, the ones that stuck in my head days after reading them:• “The Apartment,” by T.C. Boyle: A middle-aged married father of two teenage daughters feels cramped in his apartment, so he makes an unusual offer to the owner of another apartment in the building. Watch what you wish for.• “Sibling Rivalry,” by Michael Byers: This dystopian look at parenthood in the near future was as much fun to read as it was bizarre—and then the surprise (and perfect) ending gave me the shivers.• “Halloween,” by Marian Crotty: The story of young, unrequited love with compassionate interventions by a grandmother who has been married three times.• “This is Pleasure,” by Mary Gaitskill: Written from both points of view, this is a shake-your-head-in-disbelief story that qualifies as a most bizarre entry in the #metoo movement.• “Octopus VII,” by Anna Reeser: A nearly perfect coming of age story. An artist graduates with his MFA and must now figure out how to make it in the real world as a sculptor.Bonus: Do read the “Contributors’ Notes” at the end. In addition to what you would expect—a brief biographical summary of the author—each short story writer explains why/how the story came to be and sometimes its deeper meaning. I bookmarked this on my Kindle and when I finished each story, I read that author’s note. It was really quite enlightening!

There are always a number of great stories in each year's collection.

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)

Una mala antología.

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.