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AMERICAN SHORT STORY MASTERPIECES

Name: AMERICAN SHORT STORY MASTERPIECES
Author: Tom Jenks
ISBN: 0440204232

edited by Tom Jenks & Raymond Carver ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 1987

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It's hard not to be cynical about an anthology of proclaimed "masterpieces" that includes, without apology, a story by one of its editors; and although some may consider Carver a contemporary master, remarkably few other indisputable gems are brought together here—Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Philip Roth's "Tire Conversion of the Jews" and Bernard Malamud's "The Magic Barrel." On the other hand, there are an overwhelming number of mediocre tales punctuating the 36 chosen by Carver and Scribner's editor Tom Jenks; even masterly writers such as Mark Helprin, Grace Paley, Leonard Michaels, and James Alan McPherson arc represented by some of their weakest work; and just plain awful stories come from Richard Brautigan and Vance Bourjaily ("1/3, 1/3, 1/3" and "The Amish Farmer"). The notion of a contemporary masterpiece, of course, is open lo question, but what seems more clear is that the editors here seem to feel they know what's hot in the current marketplace. The many avatars of recent realist and minimalist fiction (Bobbie Ann Mason, Richard Ford, Joy Williams, Tobias Wolff, Ann Beattie, Jayne Anne Phillips) join in full numbing force in these pages. Less generous explanations would seem to account for selections by John Gardner and Arthur Miller—the first having been Carver's teacher, and Miller's "The Misfits" coming from a volume reissued by Jenks at Scribners. In his alarmingly inarticulate introduction, Carver contends that he considers this a companion to Warren and Erskine's Short Story Masterpieces (1954). Inclusion in that earlier anthology ostensibly explains the absence now of John Cheever, Peter Taylor, and Eudora Welty, none of whose preeminence, it may be said, is threatened by this unnecessary slight. But however that may be, one hardly finds here yet the anthology deserving the mantel of its—and of that earlier—august title.

Pub Date: April 3, 1987

ISBN: 0440204232

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.