Pushcart Prize XLV: Best of the Small Presses 2021

A range of styles and forms keeps the reader piqued in this impressive if uneven installment to the long-running anthology series. Meng Jin’s “In the Event” follows a Chinese American couple’s navigation of natural disasters in California and other strains on their relationship with sharp, well-placed details. Anthony Doerr’s “The Master’s Castle,” about an underachieving man who scores a gig watching over a telescope in Hawaii, starts off strong, but veers off into sentimentality. More exciting is Peter Orner’s “Fall River Wife,” in which the narrator leads the reader on a riveting exploration of family myths and his search for a sense of self. Shawn Vestal and Chris Stuck each explore intergenerational toxic masculinity through chilling riffs on language. In Vestal’s “Teamwork,” a high school football coach finds more acrobatics in his cursing than in his players on the field, “the sorriest bunch of lazy-ass mother-flippers he’s ever seen in shoulder pads,” while Stuck’s “Give My Love to the Savages” follows a mixed-race college student’s reluctant return to Los Angeles during the 1992 riots to help his car dealership–owning white father. This trove of fine work has something to offer all readers. (Dec.)