The Best American Short Stories 2018
Best-selling, award-winning, pop culture powerhouse Roxane Gay guest edits this year's Best American Short Stories, the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction. "I am looking for the artful way any given story is conveyed," writes Roxane Gay in her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2018, "but I also love when a story has a powerful message, when a story teaches me something about the world." The artful, profound, and sometimes funny stories Gay chose for the collection transport readers from a fraught family reunion to an immigration detention center, from a psychiatric hospital to a coed class sleepover in a natural history museum. We meet a rebellious summer camper, a Twitter addict, and an Appalachian preacher--all characters and circumstances that show us what we "need to know about the lives of others."
Reviews
Flavia Louise@flaviaaalouise
3.625 stars
Daryl Houston@dllh
I like this series of anthologies generally and was keen to read one edited by Roxane Gay, since I had read a couple of her books last year. I found the collection pretty uneven, though. I don't recall any stories that I felt overwhelmingly positive about (in other words, none inspired a "wow" from me), and there were several that I felt very meh about and a couple that I was surprised were published in respectable magazines much less collected in a "best" anthology. I did dog-ear a few as worthwhile: * "Los Angeles" by Emma Cline * "Boys Go to Jupiter" by Danielle Evans * "A History of China" by Carolyn Ferrell * "A Big True" by Dina Nayeri * "Items Awaiting Protective Enclosure" by Tea Obreht