WRITER'S CHOICE

The introduction by former Esquire-SEP editor Rust Hills remains to be seen here but each of the twenty writers included have selected the story they wish represented and implemented it with a foreword. Without Mr. Hills' comments it is hard to evaluate the processes of selection, always an individual matter (but only one woman -- Hortense Calisher -- and where are the great southern regionals -- O'Connor, McCullers, Welty?) and why, say, James Jones and R.V. Cassill and not John Cheever? Still Mr. Hills must have his reasons (they may be practical -- provenance -- copyrights) and in the All-American lineup beyond those mentioned are Barth, Barthelme, Capote, Evan Connell, Stanley Elkin, George P. Elliott, Bruce Jay Friedman and Herbert Gold, Mailer and Arthur Miller, Reynolds Price and James Purdy, Roth, Southern, Updike, and Thomas Williams and Richard Yates. Certainly representative of the more assertive names of the '60's.