THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1980

Stanley Elkin is this year's guest editor for the Best Stories—and, not surprisingly, the kinds of stories he likes are the kind he writes: longish, comically operatic, frequently about Jews or the momentarily possessed. (In his candid, somewhat overwrought, rather professorial preface—which might read better as an afterword—he admits this, often quite charmingly.) But, however idiosyncratic the Elkin choices, they include two spectacularly good pieces of fiction: Peter Taylor's resonant sidle into the ancient forms of self-protection by women ("The Old Forest"); and David Evanier's "The One-Star Jew," which may be American fiction's finest, cleanest rendition of the sadness and partialness of the lives of people who work together in the same office. Grace Paley's greatly moving "Friends" comes close to these standouts: it's about that old gang of playground mothers from other Paley stories—but now, in middle age, one of the friends is dying. Also at the top of the class—Richard Stern's pathetic "Dr. Kahn's Visit" and Donald Barthelme's "The Emerald," a sly fable that's often obliquely, delicately brilliant yet too frequently wiseacre. Sturdy, characteristic, unremarkable work, too, from Mavis Gallant (two stories), I. B. Singer, Updike, Elizabeth Hardwick, William Gass, Frederick Busch, John Sayles, and Barry Targan. And, among the lesser-knowns, Elkin's editorial nerve seems to have been stimulated most successfully by Curt Johnson's story of sordid-sordid-sordid extramarital involvement ("Lemon Tree") and Norman Waksler's "Markowitz and the Gypsies" (short story as extended joke, and rather nice). Add in a handful of undistinguished tales by other lesser-knowns, and it's a fairly uneven collection—like most annuals. But, if only for that superb Evanier story, it's a valuable item.