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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wideman zips up the BASS series with a multicultural slant., 24 Oct 1997
By A Customer
After last year's disastrous edition of this distinguished series, John Edgar Wideman puts it back on track with an eclectic and challenging potpourri of contemporary fiction. In 1984's edition, editor John Updike complained in his introduction that a cultural sameness had befallen the work he seleced from--middle class white folks struggling with identity and life circumstances (he compared it unfavorably to the 1934 edition, where he noted a good deal more pluralism in cultures and situations raised, and blamed magazine editors for not publishing more broadly). Well, Wideman has finally pushed this series over the line by keeping his fictional antennae up for alternative cultures, ethnic or otherwise. Although he only chose 6 stories from the slicks (as opposed to "little" magazines), I thought they had the edge this year. Five stories reprinted hit my favorite list, three of them from slicks: Stuart Dybek's hallucinatory treatment of the fiery eroticism of everyday life in "Paper Lantern" (The New Yorker); Angela Patrinos's heartbreaking portrayal of a female drifter's job as an fine art school's nude model in "Sculpture I" (The New Yorker), and Stephen Dixon's wrenching stream of consciousness evocation of the few days immediately following the loss of a man's young wife to cancer in "Sleep" (Harper's). From the small mags, two that really caught my eye were William Lychack's clever "A Stand of Fables" (Quarterly West), a magic realist updating of a traditional literary form, and Dan Chaon's "Fitting Ends" (TriQuarterly), a tragic tale of a boy whose pointless death later affects the lives of his parents, brother, and brother's family. Not among my favorites but liked by students in my creative writing class include stories by Butler, Oates, Gaylan, Lewis, Schwartz, and Thon (though the latter split the class--some loved it while others hated it). Overall the stories this year did not seem eccentrically selected, or part of an editor's personal hobbyhorse about what fiction should do or be. Minimalism seems to be dying, and an "anything goes" gaminess returning to the contemporary short story. That might bother some readers, but still leaves quite a few of us. As usual a couple of stories got in that I hated (Brown's and Adams's), but that's just me. I recommend this book for its mix of styles and up to date report on what short fiction writers are up to in the trenches of publication.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very neat! Get this one every year!, 2 Mar 1997
By A Customer
A great book! Pick this one up every year it comes out,it has been terrific every year. An eclectic selection of authors who have other publications you can find as well.
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