The Best American Short Stories 2020

I read this book as one of an American short stories reading circle members.We all are enjoying to learn how the present authors write about American lives.

I admit that so much of what happens in this collection is dependent on the tastes of the guest editor and mine being somewhat in synch but even taking that into account I must say that this years group of stories is particularly uninteresting and very poor. All but 2 of the stories here fell totally flat for me and just did not hold my interest at all. I get so very tired of the subject being crap relationships and a story peopled with neurotic self-absorbed whiny people just gets boring quickly. I like tremendous variety and I just don't see that with this years batch. Some of the writing styles are just simply talentless and the ones that aren't are just not compelling. I found myself while in the middle of almost every one of these stories looking ahead to see how many more pages were left before they would be over. Perhaps I am too much of a "classicist" being a huge fan of Henry James, Hawthorne, Poe, Faulkner, Alice Munro, Eudora Welty, Sommerset Maughm and Chekov to become interested in a story that just doesn't have any good characters, dialogue or compelling conflict. Perhaps the kind of story I admire isn't being written anymore (beginning, middle,end) but I am pretty sure that out of the 100 or so stories that were previewed by the editor here there must have been at least 4 or 5 that were outstanding. None of the stories here are what I would call "outstanding." I look forward to this collection every Hoilday and have read them for 30 or so years and some years are better than others but this year's was very disappointing and some of the ones selected were so poor that, quite frankly, I had to ask myself if the guest editor really was a writer herself. 2020 strikes again eh? Sorry, but I just don't get it.

I used to LOVE Best American Short Stories series and read them every year with the greatest of anticipation. I have 20+ of them. Now, I just find that I read one story after another with a sense of maybe I'll like the next one. I get to the end and I think that was disappointing. The stories seem to be selected more for the pleasure of other writers rather than readers. For me, a story that lingers in the mind after reading is the best one. I look for reading to bring insight and a bit of something I was unaware of before. This was not going to take me there.

The 20 stories were way too long. "Rubberdust," by Sarah Thankam Mathews was a good one about elementary school kids in a Hindu culture. It was six pages and restored some faith in short stories. Otherwise, authors today leave out a denouement that wraps things up with a good ending and not the reader going "Huh?" at the end. The stories seem to lack exactness thus leaving the reader to divine some sort of metaphorical significance when there is none. Some of these authors of this book are published because they have a PhD and a professorship somewhere--some rather prestigious. If you're a young struggling author and want have your work published, forget it unless you have a PhD because agents won't touch you. They are like used car salespersons in which they are after repeat sales by publish-or-perish professors who make their students buy their books at exorbitant prices.Two short stories of decades ago as examples of the genre's lost art are William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," and "To Esme' with Love and Squalor," by J.D. Salinger. They are not prolix nor do they offend the reader by leaving the story in limbo.

5 out of 5 starsReviewed in the United States on November 7, 2020THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2020Selected by CURTIS SITTENFELD with HEIDI PITLORReviewed by C. J. Singh Wallia (Berkeley, California)**** HEIDI PITLOR is the co-editor, since 2007, of The BestAmerican Short Stories (BASS) published annually. She is also theco-editor with LORRIE MOORE of "100 Years of the BestAmerican Short Stories." (See my amazon-review of this 723-pagebook with Heidi Pitlor's engaging introductions, instructive andwitty, for each decade. In my Creative Writing workshops, Iassign the big BASS book for self-learning and the current BASS fordetailed discussions.)**** Heidi Pitlor In her three-page Foreword in BASS 2020writes: "Inevitably, much of the world will define 2020 as theyear of the coronavirus pandemic; most of us have beenordered to stay at home for an undefined amount of time toslow the spread of the virus. Many independent bookstores, thesoul of the publishing industry, are shipping books and offeringvirtual events. To my mind the stories that follow areengrossing and sharp and thought provoking and beautiful."***In reading the BASS 2020, I was already familiar with six of the twentyshort stories: two in "The New Yorker," two in "The Paris Review,"one in "McSweeny's," one in "The Zoetrope: All Story." After completingmy Kindle reading of the BASS 2020, I fully agree with Heidi Pitlor the twentystories are indeed "engrossing and sharp." Pitlor lists (on pages 369-370) morethan 100 American and Canadian magazines from which she selects 120 storiesfor the co-editor to pick the best 20. The Best American Series comprises bookson many genre: Essays, Mystery Stories,Science Fiction and Fantasy, Science and Nature Writing, Travel Writing, and more. Having read more than a dozen BASSannuals over as many years, may I suggest a more accurate title would be:THE BEST AMERICAN LITERARY SHORT STORIES 2XXX."**** CURTIS SITTENFELD begins her nine-page Introduction: "I loved readingthese stories. I'm telling you this up front, right away, because it's the mostimportant part, and because I can't be sure you'll read this essay in its entirety."(After reading her excellent essay, I plan to ask my Creative-Writing Workshopparticipants to read for discussion her introduction "in its entirety," beginningwith her experience as a graduate student in the Iowa Writers' Workshopin 1999.)*** Curtis Sittenfeld's criteria for selecting the 20 best stories from the 120Pitlor sent her included: "A good ending -- a good last paragraph can make astory better by several magnitudes"; "A sense of humor is always a bonus withdinner companions, so it is with short stories; " (It's also my preference increative-writing); dystopian story must not be merely dystopian -- it must alsobe a story.*** Curtis Sittenfeld tells us the specific reason for each story she choseas one of the 20 best: for example, "I loved 'Halloween' by Marian Crottybecause her portrayal of teenage longing and romantic tension is so real andalive and because the grandmother is irresistible." Sittenfeld, charmngly, beginseach selection "I loved 'xxx' because..."**** ALLOW me as a reviewer of the BASS 2020 to add my brief notes on five short stories. The particular five stories chosen by readers to comment on will,of course, be idiosyncratically different.*** 1. Meng Jin's "In the Event." In the BASS 2020 Contributors' notes,Meng Jin, a resident of San Francisco City, comments on her story as"an attempt at navigating this 'disasterscape' and of finding insideit a place of meaning and art." She succeeds impressively.My note: I'm a long-time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, first atStanford, now at Berkeley. Only a few nights ago, I woke up and saw throughthe eastern window of my apartment in the MarkTwainCondominiums theentire Berkeley Hills horizon fiery red, fanned by ferocious, roaring winds. Thison top of the Bay Area residents' perennial hazard of earth-quakes. My neighbormuttered, "Very Scary." "Wonderful," I said to him loudly -- he's familiar with myironic humor -- "Now, we have a blazing sky on top of our trembling earth."**** 2. Scott Nadelson's "Liberte" is about Celine, a French medical doctorand an acclaimed literary writer of the early twentieth century andLouise Nevelson, a young, aspiring Jewish artist. In the 1930s, during theHitler era, Celine publicly urges the French to send all Jews out of France andat the same time urges Louise to marry him and live in France as an artist.My note: This reminded me reading about the German philosopher MartinHeidegger at Freiburg University ousting his Jewish professor, Edmund Husserl, the pioneer of Phenomenology and Cognitive Psychology. Heidegger, a Nazisupporter, the father of two sons, at age 35 seduced a17-year Jewishstudent, Hannah Arendt. Decades later, in America, Hannah Arendt publishedher book"The Banality of Evil."**** 3. Sarah Thankam Mathews' "Rubberdust" engaged me because I, like her,grew up in India. Reading her insertions of the way some of the words arepronounced in Indian-English sounded delightfully reminiscent. Toward the endof her short story, she writes about Mohandas Gandhi's talisman and thehistorically factual details of his not-so-well known shortcomings. I particularlyliked Mathews' discussion of her story in a workshop setting -- "meta" writing asnoted by Sittenfeld. My current work-in-progress includes lot of meta-fiction.**** 4. T. C. Boyle's "The Apartment." Replete with ironic dialogues, itis a very engaging short story. I'm a long-time fan of his writings and haveheard him on many occasions read excerpts at various SanFrancisco Bay Areabookstores.**** 5. William Pei Shih's "Enlightenment" engaged me for theprotagonist's and his foil's good intentions but weak understanding of eachother. Shih's excellent characterization and pacing remarkably welldone.*-----------------------CONTENTS of The Best American Short Stories 2020:Foreword ixIntroduction xiiSelena Anderson. "Godmother Tea" from "Oxford American" 1T. C. Boyle. "The Apartment" from "McSweeny's" 19Jason Brown. "A Faithful but Melancholy Account"" "The Sewanee Review"3Michael Byers. "Sibling Rivalry" from "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet" 54Emma Cline. "The Nanny" from "The Paris Review" 78Marian Crotty. "Halloween" from "Crazyhorse" 94Carolyn Ferrell. "Something Street" from "Story" 109Mary Gaitskill. "This Is Pleasure" from "The New Yorker" 133Meng Jin. "In the Event" from "The Three Penny Review" 168Andrea Lee. "The Children" from "The New Yorker" 188Sarah Thankam Mathews. Rubberdust from "Kenyon Review Online" 202Elizabeth McCracken. "It's Not You" from "Zoetrope: All-Story" 209Scott Nadelson. 'Liberte" from "Chicago Quarterly Review" 222Leigh Newman. "Howl Palace" from "The Paris Review" 232Jane Pek. "The Nine-Tailed Fox Explains" from "Witness" 249Alejandro Puyana. "The Hands of Dirty Children" "American Short Fiction" 260Anna Reeser. "Octopus V11" from "Fourteen Hills" 273William Pei Shih. "Enlightenment" from "Virginia Quarterly Review" 289Kevin Wilson. "Kennedy" from "Subtropics" 308Tiphanie Yanique. "The Special World" from "The Georgia Review" 329Contributors' Notes 349Other Distinguished Stories of 2019 365American and Canadian Magazines Publishing Short Stories 369Five gold-stars for The Best American Literary Short Stories 2020 -- C. J. Singh Wallia