THE PEN/O. HENRY PRIZE STORIES 2011

Name: THE PEN/O. HENRY PRIZE STORIES 2011
Author: Laura Furman
ISBN: 978-0-307-47237-3

edited by Laura Furman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2011

As Minot observes, there are “three strategies for survival.” We know two of them, fight or flight. As for the third—well,...

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Twenty pieces of powerhouse short fiction.

Selected by a jury that includes A.M. Homes and Christine Schutt, this gathering of the current crop of PEN/O. Henry Award winners makes its own argument. Even so, volume editor Furman does almost nothing in her introduction to give the stories a context beyond “savage fierceness”; a more vigorous account of the whys and wherefores of the anthology, in the manner of Bill Henderson’s introductions to his Pushcart Prize collections, would have been welcome. If conflict is the necessary foundation for literature, then the collection abounds in it, to greater or lesser effect. Far and away the strongest piece, Tamas Dobozy’s “The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kálmán Once Lived,” has the highly compressed makings of an epic reworking of Les Miserables, its setting a Hungary caught between its fascist rulers and the advancing Red Army, its dominant moods fear and shame. In “Pole, Pole,” Susan Minot outlines the toxicities within family and neighborly dynamics; Chris Adrian allows a grieving man to insult a small child to perfect effect in “The Black Square,” a fine piece of psychological writing; Lily Tuck’s “Ice” encompasses whole worlds, the landscape of the heart imposed upon the landscape of Antarctica, with its great herds of penguins: “They are small and everywhere underfoot and Maud feels as if she is walking among dwarves.” Conflict abounds, yes, but the greatest exemplars of that savage fierceness are stories that deal with the efforts of us puny humans to withstand the elements; much of Jim Shepard’s superb story “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You,” for instance, takes place atop a cliff, with little echoes of Max Frisch’s great yarn “Man in the Holocene” bouncing off the granite, while Matthew Neill Null’s “Something You Can’t Live Without” will give the claustrophobic new reasons to be glad they’re not trapped inside caves full of “blind wormy salamanders, hare-eared bats whose wings were silk fans brushing their faces.”

As Minot observes, there are “three strategies for survival.” We know two of them, fight or flight. As for the third—well, about that this well-chosen selection has much to say.

Pub Date: April 19, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-307-47237-3

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Anchor

Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.