Synopses & 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.”
Mulling over the question of character likability, series editor Heidi Pitlor asks, “Did I like these characters? I very much liked reading their stories, as did T. C. Boyle.” Here are characters who “are living, breathing people who screw up terribly and want and need and think uneasy thoughts.”
T. C. BOYLE, guest editor, has published fifteen novels and ten collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988 for his novel World’s End and the Prix Médicis étranger for The Tortilla Curtain in 1995, as well as the 2014 Henry David Thoreau Prize for excellence in nature writing. His most recent book is the novel The Harder They Come.
HEIDI PITLOR, series editor, is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays and The Daylight Marriage.
Synopsis
Award-winning and best-selling author T.C. Boyle guest edits this year’s The Best American Short Stories, the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction.
Synopsis
The literary Oscars featurestwenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories. Shelf Awareness for Readers
The Best American Short Stories 2016 will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) to the collection."
Synopsis
Award-winning and best-selling author Junot D az guest edits this year's The Best American Short Stories, the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction.
Synopsis
"The literary 'Oscars' features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories." --Shelf Awareness for Readers The Best American Short Stories 2016
will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot D az. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times) to the collection.
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.