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Rating: 
Summary: What a delight
Review: BNAV2, as my friends and I like to call it, is a terrific collection of stories from a bunch of people I've never heard of (and some that I wouldn't care to meet, no offense you lifetime prisoners). A few tales miss the mark, but most are quite good, particularly Maile Meloy's "Tome," about an unlikely hostage situation in Montana. It's nice to escape from the usual short story writer suspects and find a new batch of talented authors. Congratulations to Tobias Wolff for his astute selections.
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Summary: A Wonderful Collection of New Writers
Review: The Best New American Voices 2003 is a superb collection of stories from new writers working in graduate writing programs, arts organizations, workshops and summer conferences. The stories stretch over a wide variety of subjects representing areas from many different cultures. In "Good" a woman named Jeanie has a confusing affair with a man she meets while visiting her dying mother in the hospital. "The Storekeeper" tells the story of Hays, a sharpshooter performing an illegal mission in operation Desert Shield. The collection ends with "The Good Life" the story in this collection that dips the most into a surreal tone where a couple's new perfect home literally disintegrates before their eyes. They all focus intensely on a central character whose perspective largely dominates the story. As Joyce Carol Oates comments in her excellent introduction, "the dominant mode is psychological realism." She goes on to suggest interesting ways in which writers emerge as writers and how the discipline of writing as a formal practice has swiftly developed in America. Many of the stories have a peculiar ability to haunt you with their distinctive tone as in the stories "Who is Beatrice," where a woman is strangely disengaged from her life and wanders continuously through used book stores; "Chickensnake," where snakes demonstrate their ravenous ability to consume things whole; and "Everything Must Go," where a grieving wife is attempting to forge a new life for herself in New Hampshire with her son. The dead or dying play a major role in many of the stories. Nevertheless, the stories each feature many moments of uncommon humor and uplifting sentiments. This collection can serve as an introduction for people who want to be writers to understand the predominate contemporary "voice" and form of American fiction today. Equally, it is a treat for passionate readers to enjoy short glimpses of powerful new talent and learn names to watch for in the new releases section of bookstores. It is a wonderful and diverse collection of stories to own.
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Summary: The book delivers what it promises
Review: This book delivers what it promises: interesting, innovative, new stories from what should be the literary stars of tomorrow. I highly highly recommend it. The opening story "Good," by Cheryl Strayed, is stunning in its poignancy; and it has a climax that's both surprising and yet psychologically real. The story "Peace," by Dylan Tai Nguyen, is a rueful but powerful meditation on what happens to language in totalitarian regimes, and on what happens to families when the forces of history invade and sever. It's a sad, but deeply affecting piece. I'd buy this book for Christmas--to give to anyone interested in the landscape of serious literary fiction in America.
Rating:
Summary: The book delivers what it promises
Review: This book delivers what it promises: interesting, innovative, new stories from what should be the literary stars of tomorrow. I highly highly recommend it. The opening story "Good," by Cheryl Strayed, is stunning in its poignancy; and it has a climax that's both surprising and yet psychologically real. The story "Peace," by Dylan Tai Nguyen, is a rueful but powerful meditation on what happens to language in totalitarian regimes, and on what happens to families when the forces of history invade and sever. It's a sad, but deeply affecting piece. I'd buy this book for Christmas--to give to anyone interested in the landscape of serious literary fiction in America.
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Summary: Absolutely amazing!
Review: This is a collection that will definitely appeal to short story enthusiasts and convert all others. The anthology was a gift and I was most pleasantly surprised--I read the whole collection in a day. Like most people, I don't have much spare time to read, but the little time I do find will be spent re-reading these stories and finding comparable short story collections. What a gem of an anthology.
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Summary: Hors de combat
Review: This is the fruit of an annual story competition. The Series Editors say, "Awfully good stories. More than that, we cannot say." The Guest Editor says, "This is not an apologia for creative writing workshops." You know you're in for it, but the first story is OK, it's all jokes and jokes are rudiments of art, but there's no inspiration and the stories are all about writing and things without being things written themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Hors de combat
Review: This is the fruit of an annual story competition. The Series Editors say, "Awfully good stories. More than that, we cannot say." The Guest Editor says, "This is not an apologia for creative writing workshops." You know you're in for it, but the first story is OK, it's all jokes and jokes are rudiments of art, but there's no inspiration and the stories are all about writing and things without being things written themselves.
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