Saturday, December 31, 2022

Did Best American Short Stories 2022 move me?

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I never went beyond getting my M.A. in English, but I was a serious student of literature long enough that some of the ethos of the professi...
Saturday, December 17, 2022

Something there is that loves a wall: "Foster" by Bryan Washington

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There are some stories that wear their themes on their sleeves. They're not trying to hide what they're about in any way. In fact, t...
6 comments:
Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Now with 33% more "what"!: "Elephant Seals" by Meghan Louise Wagner

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As intricate as a story as "Elephant Seals" is, I actually don't have that much to say about it. I suspect most writers who re...
1 comment:
Sunday, December 11, 2022

Two kinds of replacing: "The Sins of Others" by Hector Tobar

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This is one of those stories where you can get to the end, think for all the world that you understood what happened, and still feel a littl...
5 comments:
Saturday, December 10, 2022

The First Rule of Quasi-Affair Club: "Ten Year Affair" by Erin Somers

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A friend asked me out of the blue the other day whether I had a lot of "platonic friendships." Depending on how rigorously one rea...
2 comments:
Friday, December 9, 2022

The opposite of history: "Mr. Ashok's Monument" by Sanjena Sathian

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Every year when I blog on Best American Short Stories, I end up pointing out at least a few times about how unusual it is to be reading a bo...
3 comments:
Sunday, December 4, 2022

More lamenting than preventing: "The Ghost Birds" by Karen Russell

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You know how sometimes, if someone talks up a movie like it's the greatest thing since Citizen Kane , they can end up creating such high...
5 comments: