New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2006

Book Review: New Stories from the South (2006 -- The Year's Best) In the introduction to this collection of short stories, novelist Allan Gurganus (The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All, Homeboy-On the Flood, and The Practical Heart) makes clear his admiration for the young writers, and for the region of the country that produced them, in spite of the disrespect often shown the region and anything it produces. "The South has for many years been whispered about as the backwoods Sibling of America's regions," he writes, "That's gratitude for you!" But Gurganus has a secret, or at least a belief that he doesn't think is willingly shared by the rest of the country. "We know things," he says. "We have seen so much. But somehow, in the age of factoids and e-mail, we, overlooked, remain in possession of a choir of cross-racial voices all dedicated to eloquent Telling at full blast." Just reading Gurganus' introduction is a moving experience, a prideful one for a southerner like this reviewer. And there is the promise in Gurganus' prose that what will follow is indeed some of the year's best short story writing from the South. He definitely delivers. But, bear with me for a bit more of Gurganus: `Stories only happen to people who can tell them,' one Confederate widow confided. 'Since Appomattox, a trillion other Southern pages have been committed --- also much revised, even perfected. And since that April, our region's prose has sung most everything except surrender. 'True, we lost once, big time. 'But our concession prize? The stories. 'Having got those in the settlement, we really are funnier and darker and shrewder --- bigger --- than the ones who still believe that they, at least, are smarter. We have been blessed with a language all our own; it encompasses those jazz-rich minority languages that make our region major. Race woes and that old rugged cross called Religion have left us as ornery as eloquent. We've been given bumper crops of younger hearts, just wising up, just coming into their new, truer versions of the ancient tale. We have outlived the forgetters, my talkative brothers and sisters. At last, we win and win and win. We have finally become what time will tell.' And what a fine benediction Allan Gurganus gives this collection of short stories called, appropriately, New Stories from the South (2006 - The Year's Best). Gurganus served as the editor of the collection along with series editor Kathy Pories. The publication is the latest in a long line of distinguished books from the tiny, prolific and first-class Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Started on a shoe string and run determinedly with books and their lovers as the central focus, Algonquin has thrived, and thrived handsomely with a library of award-worthy books, a stable of highly talented writers, and the commitment, energy and resolve not to follow blindly the rather self-defeati

It had been a long time since I sat down with a story book. The stories were in a simple style, offered a healthy distraction and had many distinct flavors. I started carrying the book to my doctors appointments, kids piano lessons, anywhere where I anticipated some waiting times. Each story took 15-20 minutes and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am so glad that I bouight it. I read about it in the newspaper book review section and just wanted to give it a try...and am so glad that I did.

In the beautiful cover artwork of NEW STORIES FROM THE SOUTH: THE YEAR'S BEST, 2006, Chanticleer is perched on a writing pen. He obviously has something to crow about as this is as fine a collection of stories as you will find anywhere. I was reminded again and again as I read each of them of why we read in the first place. These 20 stories entertain us, they tease us with language used in new ways, they often bridge the gap that separates us all, they give us new insights, they suprise us. One of the writers, William Harrison, says that "stories can sneak up on the reader." Wendell Berry's "Mike" fits that description, one of the two stories included about dogs. If you are not careful, the last sentence will make your eyes burn in spite of yourself. These 20 stories are as different in subject matter-- building a house, handling snakes, attending a high school ball game, to name three-- as their writers; but they are often similar in their themes. Many of them are about serial failures in relationships but the characters do not lose hope of starting over. Of course they are often not far away from both race and religion. My favorite story changes on any given day. Today it's Geoff Wyss' "Kids Make Their Own Houses" with the poignant but realistic definition of love after 40: "We were both over forty, and it was time to choose someone to cling to through the hunchback years, the drug-cocktail and tomato-garden years." Allan Gurganus selected these 20 stories for this anthology. He also wrote a sometimes long-winded but nonetheless brilliant introduction-- after all he is the author of the huge novel, THE OLDEST LIVING CONFEDERATE WIDOW TELLS ALL-- reminding us of what Flannery O'Connor said about why Southern writers feature freaks so often in their writing, because we can still recognize them. Mr. Gurganus takes it one step further and says these freaks are often at family reunions. He also points out that the best writers of the 20th Century are from the South: besides Ms. O'Connor, he names Tennessee Williams, James Agee, Eudora Welty and William Faulkner, "just for starters."

NEW STORIES FROM THE SOUTH is a series with which I'm very familiar. I'm a big fan of Shannon Ravenel's who for twenty years now has introduced on an annual basis gems of southern short story writing. As I was looking on the internet one day, I ran across this year's edition and noticed that instead of Ravenel being the editor, 2006's editor was Allan Gurganus. I knew that I had to read the stories he had selected because he wrote a short piece of prose himself that for me is a benchmark by which I judge other short prose. "He's One, Too" is a piece by Gurganus that had it's origin in the anthology, BOYS LIKE US: GAY WRITERS TELL THEIR COMING OUT STORIES. Later, it was collected again as one of four novellas by Gurganus called THE PRACTICAL HEART. "He's One, Too" was written so well as a piece of non-fiction that it worked just as well as fiction. I was not disappointed by the twenty selections that Gurganus chose to include in this years edition of STORIES FROM THE SOUTH: 2006-THE YEAR'S BEST. Each story had an attention-getter somewhere near the beginning and managed to hold my attention to the very end. Most anthologies' entries fall somewhere within three categories: mediocre, ok, and good. But, the stories selected by Gurganus for this year's NEW STORIES FROM THE SOUTH raised the bar. They range from very good, even better, and great. My favorite piece here was "Justice", by Daniel Wallace because it demonstrates so well the idea of the attention-getter. Wallace employed this with the first sentence: "It was his only spoken rule, but every rule arose from this one, as if he had devised the final perfect test of character and resolve; the last of everything was his." Pow, he had me hooked.