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The Best American Short Stories 1973
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August 11, 2021
"The Best American Short Stories 1973" (1973) by Various American authors.
There were some real gems in here. And i'm a bit torn in my rating. Some stories were great, while others where such a bore. I'm glad i kept track on my individual review on the seperate short stories.
1. City of Churces - by Donald Barthelme. ★ ★ ★
◇ Eerie story about a newcomer who comes to a town that just doesn't seem right underneath the "perfect" surface.. The city reminds one of the fictional town of Spectre in the book/movie Big Fish. But more eerie.
2. The Slightest Distance- by Henry Bromell. ★ ★ ★ ★
◇ A story about a mother with her three sons, one which is acting strange as they wait for her husband/their father to return to them as he is a diplomat in a war zone in Egypt and they themselves got split from him and evacuated to Alexandria and they then sailed to a beautiful vacation place in Greece.
3. The Jewels of the Cabots - by John Cheever. ★ ★
◇ A man agonizes about class privilege and racism, confessing to the knowledge of a terrible crime and exposing a quiet American family’s darkest secrets.
Wandering about the sleepy Connecticut town of his childhood, where residents lead lives of grueling boredom, a journalist reminisces about the Cabot children: Molly, a sweet girl and his first love; Geneva who pilfered her mother’s diamonds from the clothesline and ran off to the Middle East; Wallace, Mr. Cabot’s bastard son who lives in the tenements across the river; and the dwarf, Mrs. Cabot’s child from an earlier marriage.
4. Cambridge Is Sinking! - by John J. Clayton. ★
◇ DNF.
5. Old Men Dream Dreams, Young Men See Visions - by John William Corrington. ★ ★ ★ ★
◇ A story about a boy taking a girl on a date, coming home late despite of her drunk, angry father.
6. Robot - by Guy Davenport. ★
◇ DNF.
7. The Death of Sun - by William Eastlake. ★ ★
◇ Men on a hunt for the eagle named Sun.
8. The Real Meaning of the Faust Legend- by Alvin Greenberg. ★
◇ Short story about baseball. Found this incredibly boring.
9. In the Words of - by Julie Hayden. ★ ★ ★
◇ A story of growing old.
10. The Habit of The Animals: The Progress of The Seasons - by George V. Higgins. ★ ★ ★
◇ A story of a mans perspectice on the changing seasons and the animals surrounding his house. He tells of what He Worked on in his fixer upper house in the countryside and about his tense relationship with his wife who doesnt Care for the wildlife sorrounding the property. She wants him to shoot two skunks even after he make her recall a story from his militarydays where they shot a skunk and the place then were filled with that awful stench for weeks.
11. Burns - by Ward Just. ★
DNF. About Mr Burns of the State department and later CIA agent.
12. Going Home - by James S. -Kenary. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
◇ A soldier has been shot in the leg by the enemy in the war zone and is internally having a crisis between all the death around him and the uncertainty if he may be sent home and alive or if he will be forced to get back in action and thereby risking his life again. By being shot, his feeling of invulnerability has left him and he's scared, conflicted on if its right of him to want to be sent home.
13. The Way We Went - by Wallace E. Knight. ★ ★ ★
◇ Two guys hitchhikes and goes on quite the journey with two other guys who made a bet to go from point A to B in two hours (about 136 miles).
14. The Broken Wings - by Konstantinos Lardas. ★ ★ ★
◇ Story about a man going through the loss of his “friend” who died along with her infant giving birth. With the Greek myth about King Minos, Daedalus and Icarus.
15. The Silver Bullet - by James Alan McPherson. ★ ★
◇ Bringing up issues of community and manhood. We follow some low-level criminals and their back-and-forth leverage games.
16. God's Wrath - by Bernard Malamud.★ ★ ★ ★
A jewish father wants badly for his daughter to be married. He hurts by saying she wont amount to anything and die an “old spinster”.
The daughter runs away from home and changes her way of living. He run into her one Day in the city and his worries that his daughter has become a prostitute is a worry he goes to God with to help her.
Going from concerned father to:
""A black year on their heads."
"You live your life, let me live mine."
"God will curse you, He will rot your flesh."
"You're not God," Luci cried in sudden rage.
"C*cksucker!" the sexton shouted, waving his cane.
A policeman approached. Luci ran off. The sexton, to the man's questions, was inarticulate. "
17. Silkie - by Joyce Carol Oates. ★ ★ ★ ★
Joan "Silkie" reminisce on her careless schooldays some years back. She's with Nathan, a boy who's always had a crush on her. They haven't seen each other in a long time and she tells him about her troubles. She's pregnant, the father to be left her and she seeks his help.
18. Mothers - by Sylvia Plath. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Plath’s last finished story, written in 1962.
We follow the young mother Esther, a newcomer to the English countryside. She wants to be a part of the new community; and tries so by attending the “Mothers’ Union” meeting at the local church. Here she sees the superficial “church people,” which leads her to eventually form a more meaningful relationship with Mrs. Nolan, an outspoken divorcee. The two friends shares a sense of alienation and them having been tagged as the “outsiders.”
“Mothers” and "The Bell Jar" both centers on the protagonist Esther, who is often interpreted as Plath’s alter ego. In both works Esther struggles with her fears and doubts about motherhood and femininity. These two works are among Plath’s most autobiographical stories.
"Mothers" was written when marital problems between her and husband Ted Hughes had led to their separation (the story likewise has Esther and husband Tom “arguing loudly and freely”). “Mothers” clearly reflects the struggles Plath herself endured late in her life as she fought to forge a new identity in the wake of marital conflict, single parenthood, religious skepticism, and depression.
19. Come Away, Oh Human Child - by Erik Sandberg-Diment. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The story of a man torn between the life at sea and the life on land. He goes back on land when the seasons change and then back out again on the vast oceans. As he has just signed off on his ship to go onshore he meets a little girl in the woods. She wants to get to know him and at first he dismisses her. But as she offers a warm meal in her little treehouse in the woods, he tells her his name and from then on their relationship escalates. They play "house", just pretend, our so they tell themselves, but they take it rather seriously and the grown sailor gets some inappropriate thoughts toward the little girl. They are alone in the woods, they practically live together in the treehouse aside from when she goes to school. In the end the girl's name, Jan, is called in the woods by different voices as she has fallen asleep on the sailors lap.
20. Country of The Pained Freaks - by David Shetzline. ★ ★ ★
Two men clinging on to an overturned dory drifting through the sea.
21. Happy August The 10th - by Tennessee Williams ★ ★ ★ ★
The story shows how it is that the small things in one’s day-to-day existence that lead to immediate tensions among people.
The story follows two women: Elphinstone and Horne, friends and roommates of several years.
Their bickering on the morning of August the 10th is a symptom of deep anger. This realization has led Elphinstone to turn to a psychiatrist. Her psychiatrist dismisses her and calls both her and Horne insane. This dismissal by the psychiatrist has obvious economic implications (payment for the hour), but it also shows that there are times when people cannot even pay a professional to put up with them.
The roommates have a parrot named Lorita. It moves about the apartment freely and does not know that it can fly. During the story, it confines itself voluntarily to its “summer palace,” its cage out on the balcony. The parrot is symbolic in the sense that just as the two friends, they are are just as able to get out of their confining situation, but they apparently do not know that they are free. At the end of the story it is clear that they never will be.
There were some real gems in here. And i'm a bit torn in my rating. Some stories were great, while others where such a bore. I'm glad i kept track on my individual review on the seperate short stories.
1. City of Churces - by Donald Barthelme. ★ ★ ★
◇ Eerie story about a newcomer who comes to a town that just doesn't seem right underneath the "perfect" surface.. The city reminds one of the fictional town of Spectre in the book/movie Big Fish. But more eerie.
2. The Slightest Distance- by Henry Bromell. ★ ★ ★ ★
◇ A story about a mother with her three sons, one which is acting strange as they wait for her husband/their father to return to them as he is a diplomat in a war zone in Egypt and they themselves got split from him and evacuated to Alexandria and they then sailed to a beautiful vacation place in Greece.
3. The Jewels of the Cabots - by John Cheever. ★ ★
◇ A man agonizes about class privilege and racism, confessing to the knowledge of a terrible crime and exposing a quiet American family’s darkest secrets.
Wandering about the sleepy Connecticut town of his childhood, where residents lead lives of grueling boredom, a journalist reminisces about the Cabot children: Molly, a sweet girl and his first love; Geneva who pilfered her mother’s diamonds from the clothesline and ran off to the Middle East; Wallace, Mr. Cabot’s bastard son who lives in the tenements across the river; and the dwarf, Mrs. Cabot’s child from an earlier marriage.
4. Cambridge Is Sinking! - by John J. Clayton. ★
◇ DNF.
5. Old Men Dream Dreams, Young Men See Visions - by John William Corrington. ★ ★ ★ ★
◇ A story about a boy taking a girl on a date, coming home late despite of her drunk, angry father.
6. Robot - by Guy Davenport. ★
◇ DNF.
7. The Death of Sun - by William Eastlake. ★ ★
◇ Men on a hunt for the eagle named Sun.
8. The Real Meaning of the Faust Legend- by Alvin Greenberg. ★
◇ Short story about baseball. Found this incredibly boring.
9. In the Words of - by Julie Hayden. ★ ★ ★
◇ A story of growing old.
10. The Habit of The Animals: The Progress of The Seasons - by George V. Higgins. ★ ★ ★
◇ A story of a mans perspectice on the changing seasons and the animals surrounding his house. He tells of what He Worked on in his fixer upper house in the countryside and about his tense relationship with his wife who doesnt Care for the wildlife sorrounding the property. She wants him to shoot two skunks even after he make her recall a story from his militarydays where they shot a skunk and the place then were filled with that awful stench for weeks.
11. Burns - by Ward Just. ★
DNF. About Mr Burns of the State department and later CIA agent.
12. Going Home - by James S. -Kenary. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
◇ A soldier has been shot in the leg by the enemy in the war zone and is internally having a crisis between all the death around him and the uncertainty if he may be sent home and alive or if he will be forced to get back in action and thereby risking his life again. By being shot, his feeling of invulnerability has left him and he's scared, conflicted on if its right of him to want to be sent home.
13. The Way We Went - by Wallace E. Knight. ★ ★ ★
◇ Two guys hitchhikes and goes on quite the journey with two other guys who made a bet to go from point A to B in two hours (about 136 miles).
14. The Broken Wings - by Konstantinos Lardas. ★ ★ ★
◇ Story about a man going through the loss of his “friend” who died along with her infant giving birth. With the Greek myth about King Minos, Daedalus and Icarus.
15. The Silver Bullet - by James Alan McPherson. ★ ★
◇ Bringing up issues of community and manhood. We follow some low-level criminals and their back-and-forth leverage games.
16. God's Wrath - by Bernard Malamud.★ ★ ★ ★
A jewish father wants badly for his daughter to be married. He hurts by saying she wont amount to anything and die an “old spinster”.
The daughter runs away from home and changes her way of living. He run into her one Day in the city and his worries that his daughter has become a prostitute is a worry he goes to God with to help her.
Going from concerned father to:
""A black year on their heads."
"You live your life, let me live mine."
"God will curse you, He will rot your flesh."
"You're not God," Luci cried in sudden rage.
"C*cksucker!" the sexton shouted, waving his cane.
A policeman approached. Luci ran off. The sexton, to the man's questions, was inarticulate. "
17. Silkie - by Joyce Carol Oates. ★ ★ ★ ★
Joan "Silkie" reminisce on her careless schooldays some years back. She's with Nathan, a boy who's always had a crush on her. They haven't seen each other in a long time and she tells him about her troubles. She's pregnant, the father to be left her and she seeks his help.
18. Mothers - by Sylvia Plath. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Plath’s last finished story, written in 1962.
We follow the young mother Esther, a newcomer to the English countryside. She wants to be a part of the new community; and tries so by attending the “Mothers’ Union” meeting at the local church. Here she sees the superficial “church people,” which leads her to eventually form a more meaningful relationship with Mrs. Nolan, an outspoken divorcee. The two friends shares a sense of alienation and them having been tagged as the “outsiders.”
“Mothers” and "The Bell Jar" both centers on the protagonist Esther, who is often interpreted as Plath’s alter ego. In both works Esther struggles with her fears and doubts about motherhood and femininity. These two works are among Plath’s most autobiographical stories.
"Mothers" was written when marital problems between her and husband Ted Hughes had led to their separation (the story likewise has Esther and husband Tom “arguing loudly and freely”). “Mothers” clearly reflects the struggles Plath herself endured late in her life as she fought to forge a new identity in the wake of marital conflict, single parenthood, religious skepticism, and depression.
19. Come Away, Oh Human Child - by Erik Sandberg-Diment. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The story of a man torn between the life at sea and the life on land. He goes back on land when the seasons change and then back out again on the vast oceans. As he has just signed off on his ship to go onshore he meets a little girl in the woods. She wants to get to know him and at first he dismisses her. But as she offers a warm meal in her little treehouse in the woods, he tells her his name and from then on their relationship escalates. They play "house", just pretend, our so they tell themselves, but they take it rather seriously and the grown sailor gets some inappropriate thoughts toward the little girl. They are alone in the woods, they practically live together in the treehouse aside from when she goes to school. In the end the girl's name, Jan, is called in the woods by different voices as she has fallen asleep on the sailors lap.
20. Country of The Pained Freaks - by David Shetzline. ★ ★ ★
Two men clinging on to an overturned dory drifting through the sea.
21. Happy August The 10th - by Tennessee Williams ★ ★ ★ ★
The story shows how it is that the small things in one’s day-to-day existence that lead to immediate tensions among people.
The story follows two women: Elphinstone and Horne, friends and roommates of several years.
Their bickering on the morning of August the 10th is a symptom of deep anger. This realization has led Elphinstone to turn to a psychiatrist. Her psychiatrist dismisses her and calls both her and Horne insane. This dismissal by the psychiatrist has obvious economic implications (payment for the hour), but it also shows that there are times when people cannot even pay a professional to put up with them.
The roommates have a parrot named Lorita. It moves about the apartment freely and does not know that it can fly. During the story, it confines itself voluntarily to its “summer palace,” its cage out on the balcony. The parrot is symbolic in the sense that just as the two friends, they are are just as able to get out of their confining situation, but they apparently do not know that they are free. At the end of the story it is clear that they never will be.
August 11, 2013
I enjoy short story collections quite a lot in general but even more so when in the Best American Short Stories series. All the stories collected here ranged from very good to excellent. The stand-out one to me was the final one, written by Tennessee Williams, called "Happy August the Tenth.". Ironically I finished reading this book on 8-10-13.....
March 20, 2012
Lots of goodies in this one.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews