The Best American Short Stories 2019

Summary

Anthony Doerr, number-one New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, brings his “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. “As soon as you complete a description of what a good story must be, a new example flutters through an open window, lands on your sleeve, and proves your description wrong,” writes Anthony Doerr about the task of selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. The year’s best stories are a diverse, addictive group exploring everything from America’s rich rural culture to its online teen culture to the fragile nature of the therapist-client relationship. This astonishing collection brings together the realistic and dystopic, humor, and terror. For Doerr, “with every new artist, we simultaneously refine and expand our understanding of what the form can be”. Table of Contents: Anthony Doerr. "Introduction" Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. "The Era" Kathleen Alcott. "Natural Light" Wendell Berry. "The Great Interruption: The Story of a Famous Story of Old Port William and How It Ceased to Be Told (1935-1978)" Jamel Brinkley. "No More Than a Bubble" Deborah Eisenberg. "The Third Tower" Julia Elliott. "Hellion" Jeffrey Eugenides. "Bronze" Ella Martinsen Gorham. "Protozoa" Nicole Krauss. "Seeing Ershadi" Ursula K. Le Guin. "Pity and Shame" Manuel Muñoz. "Anyone Can Do It" Sigrid Nunez. "The Plan" Maria Reva. "Letter of Apology" Karen Russell. "Black Corfu" SAïD Sayrafiezadeh. Audition" Alexis Schaitkin. "Natural Disasters" Jim Shepard. "Our Day of Grace" Mona Simpson. "Wrong Object" Jenn Alandy Trahan. "They Told Us Not to Say This" Weike Wang. "Omakase"

©2019 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (P)2019 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company