The Best American Short Stories 1989

by Margaret Atwood (Editor), Shannon Ravenel

Contents: Fenstad's Mother / Charles Baxter -- Customs of the country / Madison Smartt Bell -- Living to be a hundred / Robert Boswell -- Black hand girl / Blanche McCrary Boyd -- Kubuku Rides (This is it) / Larry Brown -- Ralph the Duck / Frederick Busch -- White angel / Michael Cunningham -- Flowers of boredom / Rick DeMarinis -- Edie: a life / Harriet Doerr -- Concert party / Mavis Gallant -- Why I decide to kill myself and other jokes / Douglas Glover -- Disneyland / Barbara Gowdy -- Aunt Moon's young man / Linda Hogan -- Displacement / David Wong Louie -- Management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee -- Meneseteung / Alice Munro -- What men love for / Dale Ray Phillips -- Strays / Mark Richard -- Boy on the train / Arthur Robinson -- Letter writer / M.T. Sharif.

Selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines by Margaret Atwood with Shannon Ravenel; with an introduction by Margaret Atwood.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

341 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1989

About the author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth ­ in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of short stories selected from American and Canadian publications. The guest editor, Margaret Atwood in this edition, selects twenty of the best out of a preliminary list of 120. I can imagine what a challenge that would be. Ms Atwood provides an introduction in which she describes her approach to the project.
This edition, in my opinion, had many more good selections than other year's editions. My favorite titles were:
Customs of the Country
Living to be a Hundred
Ralph the Duck
Edie: A Life
Why I Decide to Kill Myself and Other Jokes
The Boy on the Train.
These were not uplifting stories I'm afraid but really pretty good.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appropriately for an Atwood-curated collection, the Canadians really shone this time around, with Munro and Gallant contributing some of their absolute best work. However, on the whole, I found this set of stories to be simply very good, as opposed to amazing or classic. (Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy them!)

My favorites of the bunch, in rough order of preference:

Alice Munro - "Meneseteung"
Mavis Gallant - "The Concert Party"
Charles Baxter - "Fenstad's Mother"
Frederick Busch - "Ralph the Duck"
Blanche McCrary Boyd - "The Black Hand Girl"
Michael Cunningham - "White Angel"
Dale Ray Phillips - "What Men Love For"
Arthur Robinson - "The Boy on the Train"
Rick Demarinis - "The Flowers of Boredom"

[Julie [Kaskade] · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love short stories, and this annual collection is always a must read every year.

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

More enjoyable than the 2007 collection.

[Minji Gim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology was one of the first books I read as a kid and it introduced me to the kind of fiction I'd end up loving up to today. Madison Smartt Bell's "Living to be a Hundred" is still one of my favorite short stories.

[Tim Nason · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stand-out story for me is Meneseteung by Alice Munro.

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will review later

[Gaianee · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorites:
-White angel
-Aunt Moon's Young Man
-Meneseteung
-What Men Love For

[behsforensics]

Team owns White Angel by Cunningham, Michael digitally.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I generally like the best american series and so have no complaints. this one in particular was really, really good though! i read all the stories except 4 and thought they were spectacular. i was inspired to check out some books by authors i'd never before heard of -- like harriet doerr and blanche mccrary boyd. i was surprised to read michael cunningham's short story "white angel" in here, which is the opening scene of the movie "home at the end of the world" (which was also pretty great)

[Cherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Among the twenty stories included, I found five which are worth reading. They are:

Customs of the Country by Madison Smart Bell
White Angel by Michael Cunningham
Edie: A Life by Harriet Doerr
The Management of Grief by Bharati Mukherjee
The Boy on the Train by Arthur Robinson

And yes, do read the introduction by the editor.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read a few american short stories books and picked this one because it was edited by Margaret Atwood. A few of these stories were really great.

[Cindy R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a short story person but I enjoyed this compliation more than most. The two stories that struck but the most, and gave me a few out loud laughs, were "Strays" and "The Boy on the Train."

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

i dont know how goodreads works so i never said i finished it but white angel was the best story and has the best ending line