Best New American Voices

I read the 2000 Best New American Voices and was a bit disappointed. A friend highly recommended the 2001 BNAV, however, and I'm so glad she did. Like the first reviewer I was also very impressed with Roompa Bhattacharyya's "Loss"... after I was finished reading the entire anthology, I found myself turning back to "Loss" and re-reading it. She has a lovely writing style that is fluid and rhythmic within a moving, well-controlled narrative. It's a balance I wish I could achieve in my own attempts at fiction! Other excellent stories include Kira Salak's "Beheadings" and Julie Orringer's "Pilgrims", both of which were well-paced and absorbing. I also liked "Before Las Blancas", "Bats","The Mean", and "Home, James, and Don't Spare the Horses". The rest range from pretty good to all right, so for an anthology of new writers this one is overall tops. I'm sure we'll hear much more from these writers in coming years.

As with all anthologies, you have to take the good stories with the bad. But in this year's Best New American Voices, I was glad to see that--for the most part--these new writers were more than holding their own. Charles Baxter did a wonderful job of judging this volume--no surprise there. The two highlights for me were Christina Milletti's "Villa of the Veiled Lady" and Roopa Bhattacharyya's "Loss." These two writers have a sure sense of rhythm and an appreciation of long sentences. Other stories that caught my eye were Jeb Livingood's "Oh, Albany, My Love," Kira Salak's "Beheadings" and Whitney Davis' "The Sharp Light of Trespassers" which opens boldly with a discourse on rivers. Hopefully, we'll soon see some of these writers with books of their own.