Shannon Ravenel, Author, Shannon Ravenel, Editor Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill $10.95 (368p) ISBN 978-1-56512-088-4
Ravenel, Best American Short Stories editor throughout the '80s, has done a wonderful job of selecting the stories for this, the ninth in the New Stories series. Spotlighting such literary luminaries as Barry Hannah, Frederick Barthelme, Nanci Kincaid, Ethan Canin and Reynolds Price, Ravenel also recognizes upcoming talents Melanie Sumner and George Singleton, whose stories hold up well among such weighty company. Voice varies greatly between Hannah's drugged-out lyricism in ``Nicodemus Bluff'' and Nancy Krusoe's staccato prose in ``Landscape and Dream.'' That these 16 stories are more about living anywhere than particularly down South is best evidenced in Sumner's ``My Other Life,'' in which a Tennessee belle finds herself, via the Peace Corps, in Muslim Africa. The universal themes on which these stories touch create a collection greater than the sum of its parts. ``That there is the supernatural,'' a woman tells her farmer husband near the end of Leon Rooke's ``The Heart Must from Its Breaking.'' The supernatural often appears in these stories as the mysterious workings of a higher being, though the stories themselves appeal to a different holy tradition-that of Faulkner and O'Connor. An appendix of magazines and an index of previous volumes serve as reference resources. (Oct.)
Ravenel picked these 20 pieces from 200 chosen by a decade's worth of guest editors of The Best American Short Stories , of which she is series editor, and rightly offers them as evidence of a Continue reading »
A number of accomplished Southern writers lend their often garrulous voices to the sixth annual collection of Ravenel's favorite stories. Eccentricity is a common theme here: obsessed with a Continue reading »
Ravenel once again seeks out eccentricity in this annual's seventh volume. Alison Baker writes about Siamese twins who join a first-grade class; Nanci Kincaid's story involves a woman who sympathizes Continue reading »
A young woman falls in love with a fishlike man in Fedor’s mesmerizing fantastical debut. Unable to find a job or internship after college, Cara stays at her aunt and uncle’s Continue reading »
Krow’s evocative debut novel (after the collection I’m Fine, but You Appear to Be Sinking) follows three misfits who prosper in the aftermath of a devastating fire in 1889 Continue reading »
Journalist Hafner’s marvelous fiction debut centers on a socially awkward man’s neuroses about fatherhood. While working as the chief technology officer at a startup in Continue reading »
Chang (Bestiary) returns with a dazzling collection of stories within stories that draw on old myths to embody the heartache and memories of Asian American women. In “The Chorus Continue reading »
