A review by jakeyjake
The Best American Short Stories 2019 by Heidi Pitlor, Anthony Doerr
5.0
A joy. I found myself reading about one story a day? I loved this as a collection of very different stories and voices. These stories cover a wide spectrum of topics: youth, coming-of-age, rural, urban, race, sexuality, addiction, marriage, relationships, war, the occult, mystery, art, film, drugs. Some of these stories are hard topics to deal with (like a guy plotting to brutally murder his wife). Many of these stories brought words together that made me smile or introduced new words I'd never read before. I'd recommend reading them all through as a collection, but here are my favorites—the ones that really stuck with me:
Hellion by Julia Elliott - Gators and dirt bikes and coming of age
The Era by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Gattaca + mood drugs = wild
Seeing Ershadi by Nicole Krauss - almost as if you could hear a soundtrack behind the words
Letter of Apology by Maria Reva - Soviet Ukraine, KGB, and a poet
Black Corfu by Karen Russell - A doctor who operates on the dead on the island of Korcula
Bronze by Jeffrey Eugenides - a college student exploring his sexuality, an older gay man and his dying friend
Hellion by Julia Elliott - Gators and dirt bikes and coming of age
The Era by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Gattaca + mood drugs = wild
Seeing Ershadi by Nicole Krauss - almost as if you could hear a soundtrack behind the words
Letter of Apology by Maria Reva - Soviet Ukraine, KGB, and a poet
Black Corfu by Karen Russell - A doctor who operates on the dead on the island of Korcula
Bronze by Jeffrey Eugenides - a college student exploring his sexuality, an older gay man and his dying friend