Intelligently chosen; essential for students and aspiring writers of fiction as a kind of state-of-the-art (or at least...
The latest installment in a venerable series whose origin stretches back a full century.
In her slender but charming introduction, guest editor and novelist Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad, 2010, etc.) recalls that she’d been publishing short stories for 21 years “before I managed to eke one into these pages!” Never mind the misuse of “eke”; we know what she means, and the fact is that there’s a lottery aspect to the whole enterprise. It helps to have been published in the New Yorker, as several of these pieces have been; it helps to be Joyce Carol Oates, who appears here, of course, with a story that seems tossed off for her but that would be a major accomplishment for most other writers. Recognizing the “essential arbitrariness” of the honor, then, Egan moves on to select 20 stories that are perfectly exemplary, each in its way. T.C. Boyle does his existential ennui thing with a yarn (from the New Yorker, of course) that hinges on booze, satellites and rancor (“We’d been fighting all day, fighting to the point of exhaustion, and it infuriated me to think she wouldn’t even give me this”). Continuing the boozy theme—writers and their booze!—Ann Beattie serves up a lovely slice of melancholy with a story of a former student bantering with a dying professor (“Enabler? Don’t use phoney words like that”) while puzzling over why her ex-husband happens to be in the bar at the same time. All are serviceable, none bad, but few of the stories are true tours de force, with one notable exception being Lauren Groff’s “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners,” the key word being the penultimate one, and Laura van den Berg’s odd, pensive “Antarctica” and its utterly memorable closing line—fittingly, and artfully, the last in the collection.
Intelligently chosen; essential for students and aspiring writers of fiction as a kind of state-of-the-art (or at least state-of-the-trend) snapshot, with a few standouts.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-547-86886-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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