The Best American Short Stories 2004

by Moore, Lorrie

• ISBN13: 9780618197354
• ISBN10: 0618197354
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-14
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. Lorrie Moore brings her keen eye for wit and surprise to the volume, and The Best American Short Stories 2004 is an eclectic and enthralling gathering of well-known voices and talented up-and-comers. Here are stories that probe the biggest issues: ambition, gender, romance, war. Here are funny and touching and striking tales of a Spokane Indian, the estranged wife of an Iranian immigrant, an American tutor in Bombay. In her introduction Lorrie Moore writes, "The stories collected here impressed me with their depth of knowledge and feeling of character, setting, and situation . . . They spoke with amused intelligence, compassion, and dispassion."

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Introduction by Lorrie Moore	xiv
SHERMAN ALEXIE.
What You Pawn I Will Redeem	1	(21)
from The New Yorker
T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE.
Tooth and Claw	22	(22)
from The New Yorker
CATHERINE BRADY.
Written in Stone	44	(14)
from Zyzzyva
SARAH SHUN-LIEN BYNUM.
Accomplice	58	(18)
from The Georgia Review
CHARLES D'AMBROSIO.
Screenwriter	76	(20)
from The New Yorker
STUART DYBEK.
Breasts	96	(47)
from Tin House
DEBORAH EISENBERG.
Some Other, Better Otto	143	(32)
from The Yale Review
PAULA FOX.
Grace	175	(17)
from Harper's Magazine
NELL FREUDENBERGER.
The Tutor	192	(40)
from Granta
EDWARD P. JONES.
A Rich Man	232	(20)
from The New Yorker
TRUDY LEWIS.
Limestone Diner	252	(23)
from Meridian
JILL MCCORKLE.
Intervention	275	(16)
from Ploughshares
THOMAS MCGUANE.
Gallatin Canyon	291	(13)
from The New Yorker
ALICE MUNRO.
Runaway	304	(32)
from The New Yorker
ANGELA PNEUMAN.
All Saints Day	336	(19)
from Virginia Quarterly Review
ANNIE PROULX.
What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?	355	(21)
from The New Yorker
R.T. SMITH.
Docent	376	(10)
from The Missouri Review
JOHN UPDIKE.
The Walk with Elizanne	386	(12)
from The New Yorker
MARY YUKARI WATERS.
Mirror Studies	398	(14)
from Zoetrope
JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN.
What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence	412	(21)
from Harper's Magazine
Contributors' Notes	433	(11)
100 Other Distinguished Stories of 2003	444	(5)
Editorial Addresses of American and Canadian Magazines Publishing Short Stories	449