POW-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience - Short Fiction from Then to Now

I am still only about 1/3 through this collection of short strories. All have value, but two have knocked my sox off. The Guinea Pig Lady catches life in a backwater trailer park in NH, shades of Carolyn Chute, terrific story and character development. The best so far is Wormwood, a well told tale that takes you along one road of story telling, and then BOOM! This anthology was recommended to me by no one, but it showed up as a new volume in my little local library in Maine, I gambled, and it is a treasure. I sense that a lot of modern writing is cranked out under the umbrella of academia, and that the author is required to "earn his stripes" withing the ivied halls. Not these stories. Give it a look.