Reviews

The Best American Short Stories 2014 by Heidi Pitlor, Jennifer Egan

gglazer's review

4.0

I appreciated the mix of stories in this book. Particularly loved the Charles Baxter & TC Boyle contributions.

acwong86's review

3.0

Pretty solid group of short stories. Favorites included:
Long Tom Lookout by Nicole Cullen
Madame Bovary's Greyhound by Karen Russell
Medium Tough by Craig Davidson

lonesomereader's review

5.0

Short stories are like unwanted orphans. Some lucky ones are published in major periodicals or an author’s collection or win a prize. But even great short stories can appear in a literary review and remain largely unread except by a devout following of readers. They languish in the background waiting to be noticed. Thankfully the Best American Short Stories anthology helps to highlight some stellar examples of story telling every year. This year’s anthology holds particularly impressive examples with stories that differ wildly in form and subject matter as well as spanning many different time periods and locations. The narrator of one story is former female soldier suffering from post traumatic stress while another narrator has kidnapped her stepson and yet another narrator is a closeted macho fraternity brother. There is a story set in 1370 and a story set on Antarctica and a story with sprawling multiple endings. It’s particularly touching that this anthology includes a beautiful, unusual story about a marriage disrupted (or perhaps not) from an affair by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who died in April of 2013. Every other author has written what might be called “added bonus material” for the end of this anthology where each of them discusses their inspiration for writing her/his story.

Full my full review on LonesomeReader review of Best American Short Stories 2014 edited by Jennifer Egan

innatejames's review

4.0

My four favorites were Charity by Charles Baxter, a gay relationship is divided when the men move back to America and one of the men falls into addiction. Mastiff by Joyce Carol Oates is about a dog attacking a woman and her boyfriend, whom she is not exactly sure how she feels about, protecting her. Antarctica by Laura Van den Burg about a woman who travels to a science station to be at the site of her brother's death. And Long Tom Lookout by Nicole Cullen and her narrator, a young woman who moves back to Idaho to an isolated life as a weather monitor at the top of a mountain with her ex-husband's illegitimate son.

I had to push myself through Karen Russel's Madame Bovary's Greyhound. Probably because I have not read and am not familiar with Madame Bovary. And I just did not care about the characters in Hover by Nell Freudenberger or The Breeze in Joshua Ferris's story.

karencarlson's review

5.0

Time for my annual Reading of the BASS. Comments on individual stories blogged at A Just Recompense.

anndouglas's review

5.0

I always enjoy reading the volumes in this series, but this collection was particularly good.

The two standout stories in the collection -- the ones I've already re-read a couple of times -- were "After the Flood" by Peter Cameron and "Hover" by Nell Freudenberger.

kawai's review

4.0

This anthology varies, year to year, but I've found Jennifer Egan's tastes closely match my own. From a mutant arm wrestler to a gay couple falling apart after repatriation, the anthology spans a lot, with more quality stories (and less duds) than I've found in previous years of this anthology.

corey's review

4.0

Great collection overall. There were a few baffling choices that I simply don't think belong here--Ferris' "The Breeze," Jhabvala's "The Judge's Will," Molly McNett's "La Pulchra Nota"--but I suppose that's the case with any of these anthologies. My favorites alone, though (Benjamin Nugent's "God," Beattie's "The Indian Uprising" Nicole Cullen's "Long Tom Lookout") make the book worth reading.