The Norton Book of American Short Stories

This valuable collection is not only comprehensive, but also off the beaten track. It contains an amazing variety of short stories, including some of the well-known masterpieces. My favorites in this collection are "The swimmer" (an outstanding example of the grotesque), as well as the thrilling story about "The baby in the ice-box" (sheer captivating story-telling). Rarely had so much fun reading a short story. There are many less funny stories here as well, if you prefer. And you meet many famous writers in little-known stories, which are quite characteristic. Even O Henry is present with a true masterpiece.

College instructors like me tend to find the same stories anthologized over and again in countless textbooks. My decision to offer the Prescott volume in a recent class provided me and my students access to stories we wouldn't ordinarily see in books specifically intended to be read in literature classes. For every familiar piece, like Walker's "Everyday Use," one finds a relatively obscure treasure, like Loos' "Liquor Makes You Smart." Sure, the standard, canonized authors are here, but instead of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," we get "Wash"; we also get Hughes' "Slave on the Block," Lardner's "Champion," Cather's "Paul's Case," and other works not often the predictable choices for textbook editors. This collection would have been a treat to read for fun, but I consider it an interesting, challenging textbook for class, as well. I wish only that it would be more representative of American ethnic diversity--a shortcoming I overcame by assigning an additional short story collection for my students. Still, Prescott's anthology contains many enjoyable works; in my opinion, Elkin's "A Poetics for Bullies" alone should make any reader glad to have picked up this book.

American story collections abound, but this one's definitely a cut above. The editor manages to include a lot of the well-known selections that I want and expect in a good overview, but the book is also full of entertaining surprises. I'd never heard of Mark Twain's funny and irreverent "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime In Connecticut," but it's a much better choice than the over-anthologized "Jumping Frog." I was glad to find Conrad Aiken's chilling (no pun intended) "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" and to discover Ellen Gilchrist's wonderfully subtle "Victory Over Japan".The format is truly worthy of a personal library, with nice creamy paper, instead of the thin show-through paper I usually associate with Norton, and a sun-filled (yes, really!) Edward Hopper painting adorning an attractive cover.