A review by sharonbakar
The Best American Short Stories 2017 by Heidi Pitlor, Meg Wolitzer
5.0
I look forward to Best American Stories each year. I very much enjoyed all but two or three of the stories Meg Wolitzer selected - clearly her criteria included strong storytelling, memorable characters, and so much truth it almost hurt.
My favourite story was The Midnight Zone by Lauren Groff in which a mother is stuck with her two small sons in a cabin in the Florida wilds. There's a panther prowling nearby, it's impossible to get a mobile phone signal unless you stand on the roof, and the husband has been called back to the city after one of his tenants dies. What more could go wrong? If one of the classic ways to generate energy for short story is to throw your characters into as much trouble as possible, this story illustrates that beautifully ... but then it goes on to completely surprise us.
I also loved Last Day on Earth by Eric Puchner, Jess Walter's Famous Actor, Mary Gordon's Ugly, and Jim Shepard's Telemachus.
The author notes at the back of the book, in which they explain how the story came to be provide brilliant insights into the creative process.
My favourite story was The Midnight Zone by Lauren Groff in which a mother is stuck with her two small sons in a cabin in the Florida wilds. There's a panther prowling nearby, it's impossible to get a mobile phone signal unless you stand on the roof, and the husband has been called back to the city after one of his tenants dies. What more could go wrong? If one of the classic ways to generate energy for short story is to throw your characters into as much trouble as possible, this story illustrates that beautifully ... but then it goes on to completely surprise us.
I also loved Last Day on Earth by Eric Puchner, Jess Walter's Famous Actor, Mary Gordon's Ugly, and Jim Shepard's Telemachus.
The author notes at the back of the book, in which they explain how the story came to be provide brilliant insights into the creative process.