American Short Story Masterpieces

by Carver, Raymond; Jenks, Tom

• ISBN13: 9780440204237
• ISBN10: 0440204232
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1989-04-02
• Publisher: Dell

Summary

This highly Acclaimed collection of short stories by American writers contains only the best literary art of the past four decades. With a bias toward realism editors Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks have selected fiction that "tells a story"and tells it with a masterful handling of language, situation, and insight. But what is so special about this volume is that it mirrors our age, our concerns, and our lives. Whether it's the end of a marriage, as in Bobbie Ann Manson's "Shiloh," or the struggle with self-esteem and weight in Andre Dubus's"The Fat Girl,"the 36 works included her probe issues that give us that "shock of recognition" that is the hallmark of great artwonderful, absorbing fiction that will be read and reread for decades to come.

Author Biography

Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His first collection of stories, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please (a National Book Award nominee in 1977), was followed by What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1984), and Where I'm Calling From in 1988, when he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in August of that year, shortly after completing the poems of A New Path to the Waterfall.

Table of Contents

Chronological Table of Contents	xi
Introduction	xiii
Sonny's Blues	1	(32)
James Baldwin
Weekend	33	(16)
Ann Beattie
The Bystander	49	(7)
Gina Berriault
The Amish Farmer	56	(15)
Vance Bourjaily
1/3, 1/3, 1/3	71	(4)
Richard Brautigan
Verona: A Young Woman Speaks	75	(7)
Harold Brodkey
Talk of Heroes	82	(19)
Carol Bly
Fever	101	(22)
Raymond Carver
The Fisherman From Chihuahua	123	(9)
Evan S. Connell
Midair	132	(18)
Frank Conroy
Willi	150	(8)
E. L. Doctorow
The Fat Girl	158	(15)
Andre Dubus
A Poetics for Bullies	173	(17)
Stanley Elkin
Rock Springs	190	(21)
Richard Ford
The Lover of Horses	211	(12)
Tess Gallagher
Redemption	223	(14)
John Gardner
Dream Children	237	(13)
Gail Godwin
The Ledge	250	(17)
Lawrence Sargent Hall
Water Liars	267	(4)
Barry Hannah
Letters from the Samantha	271	(11)
Mark Helprin
Ile Forest	282	(13)
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Magic Barrel	295	(16)
Bernard Malamud
Shiloh	311	(15)
Bobbie Ann Mason
The Story of a Scar	326	(13)
James Alan McPherson
Murderers	339	(4)
Leonard Michaels
The Misfits	343	(18)
Arthur Miller
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?	361	(17)
Joyce Carol Oates
A Good Man is Hard to Find	378	(15)
Flannery O'Connor
The Used-Boy Raisers	393	(6)
Grace Paley
The Heavenly Animal	399	(15)
Jayne Anne Phillips
Walking Out	414	(26)
David Quammen
The Conversion of the Jews	440	(15)
Philip Roth
Akhnilo	455	(6)
James Salter
The Christian Roommates	461	(25)
John Updike
The Wedding	486	(9)
Joy Williams
The Liar	495
Tobias Wolff