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Davis, Alan ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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AMERICAN FICTION: THE BEST UNPUBLISHED SHORT STORIES BY EMERGING WRITERS, VOL. 7
Davis, Alan
1995 7338 ABOUT THE BOOK American Fiction: The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Vol. 7 FROM THE PUBLISHER THE FICTIONAL VOICE is what all of us here are for, as Tim O'Brien, this year's guest judge, points out in his powerful introduction. In this day of information glut, we are still starved for the truth of the story; story is where wilderness resides, absolutely pure and distinct from the babble around it. Two years ago, guest judge Tobias Wolff wrote that "American Fiction" is the one anthology that deliberately and exclusively sets out to find the best unpublished stories by emerging writers-a loose category meant to encourage submissions by everyone not yet famous enough to enjoy the certainty of publication elsewhere." FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly Davis, White and guest judge Tim O'Brien have pulled together 20 excellent writers. Some have had a novel published, or a story in a literary journal, but with the possible exceptions of Josip Novakovich and Pamela Erbe, these are not widely recognizable names. A few stories are particularly worthy of note, especially "Polraiyuk," Karin Ciholas's story of an Eskimo tribe and its battle with a killer whale. Ciholas's voice is strong, fresh, scattered with gentle irony. ("We had to smile when [the Chukchi] started their chant just as the official from fish and wildlife started to speak. We buried the pile of leaflets he handed out with Naulak. They kill trees in the South to preach conservation.") Then there's A. Manette Ansay's "July," a vividly written description of one woman's empowerment. ("One bloody knuckle peeked over the horizon and the flooded fields took up the color until the land around the house burned wild fire"). And "Maria" by Kathleen George manages to be moving and nostalgic while maintaining a hard edge. Readers looking for good writing and a taste of the future could do far worse. (Mar.) Publishers Weekly When he assembled the first of these annual prize anthologies in 1988, the late Raymond Carver awarded first prize to Antonya Nelson. Now Nelson (Nobody's Girl) and her husband, Robert Boswell (Crooked Hearts), have collaborated in choosing this mixed collection of 19 new stories. Realistic description is the cornerstone of most of these tales, which mainly concern domestic and adolescent epiphanies. In first prize-winner Karen Halvorsen Schreck's "Model Home," a teenage boy builds an exquisite miniature house for his sister, as if to compensate for the abuse she suffers from her father and boyfriend. Its pathos contrasts with Sarah McElwain's buoyantly comic second prize story, "Born Lucky," in which phone-sex worker Evening K. Titlebaum's unborn daughter explains how Evening plans to get rich by giving birth to her at midnight on December 31, 1999. In Cathy Day's moving third prize story, "Boss Man," an Indiana campground manager discovers his hidden affinities with the gypsies who plague his site. Among other contributions, Tom Paine's entry, "The Mayor of Saint John," focuses on a shy West Indian substitute teacher, suddenly appointed mayor of the island, whose idealistic dreams are crushed by the cultural invasion of foreigners. Several coming-of-age tales exhibit promise: Stephen Bauer's "All the Night Could Hold" explores a boy's fascination with his alcoholic stepfather, while Patricia Ann McNair's affecting "The Temple of Air" follows the adventures of a cult member's chronically ignored adolescent daughter. Although the volume provides pleasant reading, however one looks in vain for stories that presage talent equal to that of the two judges in their early work. Nineteen previously unpublished stories by unknown writers, edited by Davis (Rumors from the Lost World, 1993) and White (A Brother's Blood, 1996). "Emerging" is an optimistic description of the young authors collected here, most of whom have never appeared between the covers of a book before now. Carol Publishing Group 0898231647 / 9780898231649
Paperback As New Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.
Price:
17.72 USD
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