These annual anthologies carry the best short fiction published during the previous year in American and Canadian magazines. Twenty stories each are selected from editor shortlists by a Guest Editor in the Best American Short Stories and a jury of three eminent writers select them in PEN/O. Henry collection. Selected pieces include those by celebrated writers who have been featuring for years and by debutants. Despite the variety in themes, craft and technique, there is a steady decline in excellence of stories over the past few years. There are perceptive pieces, with diversity of plot, themes, characters and narrative structure, and stories which have no critical merit. Among magazines The New Yorker tops the list with six pieces in the Best American Stories and one in the O.Henry collection. There are other magazines like the Granta, Mc Sweeny’s, Paris Review, Agni, Tin House, Atlantic, The Harpers Magazine and unknown ones like Glimmer Train, Triquarterly, Ecotone, The American Scholar, Epoch, Electric Literature.
Among the Best American Short Stories, in “Ceiling”, Chimamada Ngozie Adichie perfectly captures the tragedy of a man who is wrongly married and leads a wrong life in the corrupt upper Lagos society, while his heart yearns for his college sweetheart, whom he perceives as perfect woman. The social change in Nigeria is insightful. Joyce Carole Oates’ “ID” is heart-rending: It is about a teenage girl, who is asked by the police to identify the body of a woman, whom they think is of her mother’s. The mother has gone away for several days and daughter, Lissette, has no idea where the mother has gone or would be back.
“A Bridge Under Water” by Tom Bissell examines the lives of a newly married couple and their differences during the initial days of honeymoon in Rome. In “Gurov in Manhattan” Ehud Havazelet narrates the plight of a Russian immigrant, afflicted by cancer and deserted by his girlfriend, has to take care of her dying dog. Another haunting story of loss and grief is Allegra Goodman’s “La Vita Nuova”. A children’s art teacher is left by her fiancé just before marriage and while babysitting she paints the histories of people on dolls and allows her students to paint on her wedding dress.
Rebecca Makkai’s “Peter Torelli, Falling Apart” is about an actor who loses his ability to act and his relationship with a friend. Megan Mayhew Bergman in “Housewifely Arts” portrays a single mother driving for nine hours with her seven-year-old son to visit her dead mother’s parrot: The parrot perfectly mimics her mother’s voice.
“Soldiers of Fortune” by Bret Anthony Johnston is about a high school boy’s fascination for a senior girl next door and of later learning her secret. “Escape From Spiderland” by George Saunders is about prisoners who are used in an experiment with psychosomatic drugs. The prisoners are brought to the depths of desire and height of relaxation and to desolation.
The prize jury of The PEN/ O.Henry Prize Stories is A.M. Homes, Manuel Muňoz and Christine Schutt. What struck them for the selections make interesting reading. Several of the stories travel in time and place, and conflict and fierceness are lingering themes in some.
Jim Shepard’s outstanding story “Your Fate Hurtles Down At You” takes place in Switzerland atop a cliff and is about vagaries of love and a man’s research on avalanches.
Lily Tuck’s “Ice” is about Antarctica with its great herds of penguins. Tamas Dobozy’s “The Restoration of The Villa Where TÍbor Kálmán Once Lived” is set in Hungary during World War II and caught between fascist rulers and the advancing Red army. Jane Delury’s “Nothing Of Consequence” set in Madagascar is about the complex love affair between a teacher and her student. Lori Ostlund’s “Bed Death” narrates about a lesbian couple teaching English in Malaysia and drifts apart in the end. “Pole, Pole” by Susan Minot is set in Kenya and outlines the complex family and neighbourhood dynamics. In “How To Leave Hialeah” Jennifer Capó Crucet effectively uses the second person narrative and indicts the university’s diversity programmes and its effects on students far from home. The protagonist works her way into Miami’s lower classes to confront racism, ignorance and identity crisis. There are also several other notable pieces in the collection.