Best New American Voices

The Best New American Voices 2003 is a superb collection of stories from new writers working in graduate writing programs, arts organizations, workshops and summer conferences. The stories stretch over a wide variety of subjects representing areas from many different cultures. In "Good" a woman named Jeanie has a confusing affair with a man she meets while visiting her dying mother in the hospital. "The Storekeeper" tells the story of Hays, a sharpshooter performing an illegal mission in operation Desert Shield. The collection ends with "The Good Life" the story in this collection that dips the most into a surreal tone where a couple's new perfect home literally disintegrates before their eyes. They all focus intensely on a central character whose perspective largely dominates the story. As Joyce Carol Oates comments in her excellent introduction, "the dominant mode is psychological realism." She goes on to suggest interesting ways in which writers emerge as writers and how the discipline of writing as a formal practice has swiftly developed in America. Many of the stories have a peculiar ability to haunt you with their distinctive tone as in the stories "Who is Beatrice," where a woman is strangely disengaged from her life and wanders continuously through used book stores; "Chickensnake," where snakes demonstrate their ravenous ability to consume things whole; and "Everything Must Go," where a grieving wife is attempting to forge a new life for herself in New Hampshire with her son. The dead or dying play a major role in many of the stories. Nevertheless, the stories each feature many moments of uncommon humor and uplifting sentiments. This collection can serve as an introduction for people who want to be writers to understand the predominate contemporary "voice" and form of American fiction today. Equally, it is a treat for passionate readers to enjoy short glimpses of powerful new talent and learn names to watch for in the new releases section of bookstores. It is a wonderful and diverse collection of stories to own.

This book delivers what it promises: interesting, innovative, new stories from what should be the literary stars of tomorrow. I highly highly recommend it. The opening story "Good," by Cheryl Strayed, is stunning in its poignancy; and it has a climax that's both surprising and yet psychologically real. The story "Peace," by Dylan Tai Nguyen, is a rueful but powerful meditation on what happens to language in totalitarian regimes, and on what happens to families when the forces of history invade and sever. It's a sad, but deeply affecting piece. I'd buy this book for Christmas--to give to anyone interested in the landscape of serious literary fiction in America.