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The Best American Short Stories of the Century PDF

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P R A I S E FOR The Best American Short Stories of the Century “Finding wonderful stories that you don't already know is one of this collec- tion’s great pleasures . . . Updike has made some surprising, even striking, selections.” New York Times Book Review — “Extraordinary ... a one-volume literary history of this country’s immeasur- able pains and near-infinite hopes.” — Boston Globe “A spectacular tapestry of fictional achievement... The result is a thrillingly energized argument for the enduring vitality of big ideas in small packages.” Entertainment Weekly — “Revelatory.” Chicago Tribune — “Splendid ... [these stories] surely represent the short story — not to mention America and the twentieth century — at its best.” Wall Street Journal — “Provocative ... a wonderful companion for your fin-de-si&cle bedside table.” USA Today - “A literary march through time ” Seattle Post-Intelligencer — “Persuasive evidence that this century has been the golden age for American short fiction. Indeed, if there is justice in this world, this welcome collection might become a ubiquitous fixture on the shelves of the book-loving ” Cleveland Plain Dealer — “A trove of masterful offerings from the best short-story writers this country has ever produced ... Something vital and engaging on every page ... This collection, weaving as it does the accepted masters with the almost-forgotten voices, the expected and the surprising, is well worth owning.” San Diego Union-Tribune — “The riches contained — including a foreword by Kenison and a deft introduc- tion from Updike — prove the title accurate ... This extraordinary collection offers up dazzling writing ... as well as stories full of the pleasures of life ” Publishers Weekly — “A delightful, often offbeat, collection ” U.S. News & World Report — “Impressive... the chronological arrangement reveals much about the history of the genre... The short story can be as rich, as dense and deep, as the long- est novel.” Elle — The BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES of the Century John Updike • EDITOR Katrina Kenison • COEDITOR WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN UPDIKE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK Copyright © 1999,2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company Introduction copyright © 1999 by John Updike ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein Address requests for permis- sion to make copies of Houghton Mifflin material to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. For permission to reprint the stones included in this volume, see below issn 0067-6233 ISBN 0-395-84368-5 ISBN 0-395-84367-7 (pbk) Book design by Robert Overholtzer Printed in the United States of America QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 “Zelig” by Benjamin Rosenblatt Copyright © 1915 by the Bellman Co Copyright © 1916 by Benjamin Rosenblatt “Little Selves” by Mary Lemer. Copyright © 1916 by The Atlantic Monthly Co Copyright © 1917 by Mary Lemer “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell Copyright © 1917 by the Crowell Publishing Co. Copyright © 1918 by Susan Glaspell Cook. “The Other Woman” by Sherwood Anderson Copyright © 1920 by Margaret C. Anderson Copyright © 1921 by Sherwood Anderson “Tlie Golden Honeymoon” by Ring Lardner. Copyright © 1922 by The International Magazine Company (Cosmopolitan) Copyright © 1923 by Ring Lardner. Renewal copyright © 1950 “Blood-Burning Moon” by Jean Toomer Copyright © 1923 by Prairie Copyright © 1923 by Boni and Liveright, Inc. “The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, from Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway Copyright © 1927 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Copyright renewed 1955 by Ernest Hemingway. “Double Birthday” by Willa Cather. Copyright © 1929 by Willa Cather. Reprinted with permission of the estate of Willa Cather “Wild Plums” by Grace Stone Coates Copyright © 1928 by H G Merriam “Theft” by Katherine Anne Porter. Copyright © 1930 by Katherine Anne Porter Reprinted with permission of the trustees for the literary estate of Katherine Anne Porter “That Evening Sun Go Down” by William Faulkner From Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner. Copyright © 1931 and renewed 1959 by William Faulkner. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc “Here We Are” by Dorothy Parker Copyright © 1931, renewed copyright © 1959 by Dorothy Parker, from The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. “Crazy Sunday” by E Scott Fitzgerald Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, from The Short Stories of F Scott Fitzgerald> edited by Matthew J Bruccoli Copyright © 1932 by American Mercury Inc Copyright renewed © 1960 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan “My Dead Brother Comes to America” by Alexander Godin. Copyright © 1933 by Frederick B Maxham “Resurrection of a Life” by William Saroyan Copyright © 1934,1936,1959 by William Saroyan. Reprinted by permission of Leland Stanford Junior University. “Christmas Gift” by Robert Penn Warren Copyright © 1938, renewed 1966 by Robert Penn Warren. Reprinted by permission of William Morris Agency, Inc on behalf of the author “Bright and Morning Star” by Richard Wright Copyright © 1938 by Richard Wright. Copyright © renewed 1966 by Ellen Wright. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc “The Hitch-Hikers” by Eudora Welty. From A Curtain of Green and Other Stories by Eudora Welty. Copyright © 1939 and renewed 1967 by Eudora Welty, reprmted by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company. “The Peach Stone” by Paul Horgan From The Peach Stone by Paul Horgan Copyright © 1967 by Paul Horgan Copyright renewed © 1995 by Thomas B. Catron, III. “That in Aleppo Once ” by Vladimir Nabokov. From The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov. Copyright © 1995 by Dimitn Nabokov. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A Knopf Inc “The Interior Castle” by Jean Stafford From The Collected Stories by Jean Stafford Copyright © 1969 by Jean Stafford. “Miami-New York” by Martha Gellhom Copyright 1948 by Martha Gellhom Reprinted with permission of the Estate of Martha Gellhom “The Second Tree from the Corner” (continues on page 836) Contents Foreword vii Introduction by John Updike xv 1915 • BENJAMIN ROSENBLATT. Zelig 1 1916 ־ mary lerner. Little Selves 7 1917 • susan glaspell. A Jury of Her Peers 18 1920 ־ sherwood anderson. The Other Woman 38 1922 • ring lardner. The Golden Honeymoon 45 1923 ״ jean toomer. Blood-Burning Moon 60 1927 • ernest hemingway. The Killers 68 1929 • willa cather. Double Birthday 77 1929 • grace stone coates. Wild Plums 100 1930 ״ KATHERINE ANNE PORTER. Theft 105 1931 ״ william faulkner. That Evening Sun Go Down 111 1931 ״ dorothy parker. Here We Are 127 1933 ״ f. scott Fitzgerald. Crazy Sunday 136 1934 ־ alexander godin. My Dead Brother Comes to America 153 1935 ״ william saroyan. Resurrection of a Life 159 1938 • robert penn warren. Christmas Gift 169 1939 • richard wright. Bright and Morning Star 179 1940 ״ eudora welty. The Hitch-Hikers 211 1943 ״ paul horgan. The Peach Stone 224 1944 • Vladimir nabokov. “That in Aleppo Once ...” 241 1947 ״ jean Stafford. The Interior Castle 250 1948 * martha gellhorn. Miami-New York 264 1948 ״ e. b. white. The Second Tree from the Comer 281 1949 ״ elizabeth bishop. The Farmer’s Children 286 vi CONTENTS 1951 • j. f. pow ers. Death of a Favorite 295 1951 • Tennessee w illiam s. The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin 312 1955 ' John cheever. The Country Husband 325 1957 • flannery o’connor. Greenleaf 348 i960 • LAWRENCE SARGENT HALL. The Ledge 369 i960 • philip roth. Defender of the Faith 384 1962 ־ Stanley elkin. Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers 411 1964 • Bernard malamud. The German Refugee 438 1967 • joyce carol oates. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 450 1968 • mary ladd gavell. The Rotifer 466 1969 • JAMES ALAN McPHERSON. Gold Coast 477 1970 • isaac bashevis singer. The Key 493 1973 • donald barthelm e. A City of Churches 503 1975 • ROSELLEN BROWN. Howto Win 507 1976 • alice adams. Roses, Rhododendron 520 1978 • harold brodkey. Verona: A Young Woman Speaks 533 1979 • saul bellow . A Silver Dish 539 1980 • john updike. Gesturing 565 1981 • cynthia ozick. The Shawl 576 1983 • Raymond carver. Where I’m Calling From 581 1986 • ann beattie. Janus 595 1987 • susan sontag. The Way We Live Now 600 1987 • tim o’brien. The Things They Carried 616 1989 • alice munro. Meneseteung 633 1990 • lorrie moore. You’re Ugly, Too 652 1993 • thom jones. I Want to Live! 671 1994 • alice e llio tt dark. In the Gloaming 688 1994 • Carolyn ferrell. Proper Library 705 1995 • gish jen. Birthmates 720 1997 • PAM DURBAN. S00n 735 1998 • annie prou lx. The Half-Skinned Steer 754 1999 • pam H ouston. The Best Girlfriend You Never Had 769 Biographical Notes 789 Index of the Best American Short Stories, 1915-1999 797 Foreword edward j. o’brien was twenty-three years old, already a published poet and playwright, when he began work on the first volume of The Best American Short Stories. He sold the idea to the Boston house of Small, Maynard & Company, which launched the series in 1915. “Because an American publisher has been found who shares my faith in the democratic future of the American short story as something by no means ephemeral,” he wrote in his first introduction, “this yearbook of American fiction is assured of annual publication for several years .” Nearly eight-five years and eighty-five volumes later, the annual anthol- ogy that a young Harvard graduate envisioned on the eve of World War I has become not only an institution but an invaluable record of our century. Although the series was briefly published by Dodd, Mead & Company before it became an integral part of the Houghton Mifflin list in 1933, it has been published without interruption every year since its inception. In almost all respects, the world we now inhabit is vastly different from the world that is reflected in the earliest volumes. In the first years of the century, America was receiving tides of immigrants; indeed, immigration was perhaps the greatest human story of the time, and its themes reverber- ated in the stories O’Brien found. The orderly evolution of a national literature, as could be traced in a more homogeneous European culture, was nearly impossible to discern in the United States. But O’Brien saw virtue in our diversity, and while other critics of the time dismissed Ameri- can fiction for its lack of sophistication and technique, he detected stirrings of something altogether new — a distinctly American literature worth rec- ognizing and encouraging on its own terms. O’Brien sensed that the short story was about to come into its own as a particularly American genre, and he presciently set out, as he explained, “to viii Foreword trace its development and changing standards from year to year as the field of its interest widens and its technique becomes more and more assured” If anything, O’Brien’s ability to spot and crusade for quality fiction seems all the more remarkable from our vantage point. Upon Sherwood Anderson’s first appearance in print, in 1916, O’Brien recognized both a new talent of the first rank and the real emergence of the modern short story. “Out of Chicago have come a band of writers, including Anderson, Ben Hecht, Lindsay, Masters, and Sandburg,” he announced, “with an altogether new substance, saturated with the truth of the life they are experiencing.” Suddenly, it seemed, fiction was being written that was worthy of the devotion O’Brien was ready to bring to it. “This fight for sincerity in the short story is a fight that is worth making,” he wrote in 1920. “It is at the heart of all that for which I am striving. The quiet sincere man who has something to tell you should not be talked down by the noisemakers. He should have his hearing. He is real. And we need him. That is why I have set myself the annual task of reading so many short stories.” The results of O’Brien’s labors over the next twenty years are revealed in the roster of authors who found early recognition and support in his anthology, including Ring Lardner, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, J. R Marquand, Dorothy Parker, Erskine Caldwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, William Saroyan, John Steinbeck, Irwin Shaw, Kay Boyle, and Rich- ard Wright. In 1923, O’Brien broke his own cardinal rule — that only previously published short stories are eligible for consideration — in order to publish a short story by a struggling young writer he had just met in Switzerland. All of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories to date had been rejected by editors; when he met O’Brien, he poured out a tragic tale of a lost suitcase full of manuscripts and admitted that he was so discouraged he was ready to give up writing. O’Brien asked to see the two stories he had left, and decided to publish one of them, “My Old Man.” He not only gave Heming- way his first publication, he dedicated that year’s volume to Hemingway, then a twenty־four־year־old reporter for the Toronto Star, thereby launch- ing one of the most celebrated literary careers of our century. Typically, O’Brien would spend the entire weekend ensconced in his upstairs study, emerging only for meals. By Monday morning, he would have read through the week’s worth of periodicals from both America and Great Britain (he also edited an annual anthology of the best British short stories), and he would have filed and graded every short story published during the previous week. Some years, he estimated that he read as many as 8,000 short stories.

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Since the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature. Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIE
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