Jennifer Egan - The Best American Short Stories 2014

Copyright 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Introduction copyright 2014 by Jennifer Egan

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ISSN 0067-6233

ISBN 978-0-547-81922-8

ISBN 978-0-547-86886-8 (pbk.)

e ISBN 978-0-547-81924-2
v1.0914

Charity by Charles Baxter. First published in McSweeneys, Issue 43. Copyright 2013 by Charles Baxter. Reprinted by permission of Darhansoff and Verrill literary agency.

The Indian Uprising by Ann Beattie. First published in Granta, No. 126. Copyright 2014 by Anne Beattie. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Night of the Satellite by T. Coraghessan Boyle. First published in The New Yorker, April 15, 2013. from T. C. Boyle Stories II: The Collected Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle, copyright 2013 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

After the Flood by Peter Cameron. First published in Subtropics, Issue 15. Copyright 2013 by Peter Cameron. Reprinted by permission of Irene Skolnick Literary Agency.

Long Tom Lookout by Nicole Cullen. First published in Idaho Review, vol. XIII. Copyright 2013 by Nicole Cullen. Reprinted by permission of Nicole Cullen.

Medium Tough by Craig Davidson. First published in Agni, #77. Copyright 2013 by Craig Davidson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Breeze by Joshua Ferris. First published in The New Yorker, September 30, 2013. Copyright 2014 by Joshua Ferris. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Hover by Nell Freudenberger. First published in The Paris Review, #207. Copyright 2013 by Nell Freudenberger. Reprinted by permission of Nell Freudenberger.

A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me by David Gates. First published in Granta, no. 126. Copyright 2013 by David Gates. Reprinted by permission of David Gates.

At the Round Earths Imagined Corners by Lauren Groff. First published in Five Points. Copyright 2013 by Lauren Groff. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Judges Will by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. First published in The New Yorker, March 25, 2013. Copyright 2013 by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Reprinted by permission of C.S.H. Jhabvala.

Evie M. by O. A. Lindsey. First published in Iowa Review, vol. 43, no. 1. Copyright 2014 by O. A. Lindsey. Reprinted by permission of O. A. Lindsey.

Kattekoppen by Will Mackin. First published in The New Yorker, March 11, 2013. Copyright 2013 by Will Mackin. Reprinted by permission of Will Mackin.

This Is Not a Love Song by Brendan Mathews. First published in Virginia Quarterly Review, 89/3. Copyright 2013 by Brendan Mathews. Reprinted by permission of Brandt and Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

La Pulchra Nota by Molly McNett. First published in Image, no. 78. Copyright 2014 by Molly McNett. Reprinted by permission of the author.

God by Benjamin Nugent. First published in The Paris Review, #206. Copyright 2013 by Benjamin Nugent. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Mastiff by Joyce Carol Oates. First published in The New Yorker, July 1, 2013. Copyright 2014 by Ontario Review, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Joyce Carol Oates.

Next to Nothing by Stephen OConnor. First published in Conjunctions: 60. Copyright 2013 by Stephen OConnor. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Madame Bovarys Greyhound by Karen Russell. First published in Zoetrope: All-Story, vol. 17, no. 2. Copyright 2013 by Karen Russell. Reprinted by permission of Denise Shannon Literary Agency, Inc.

Antarctica by Laura van den Berg. First published in Glimmer Train, Issue 88, Fall 2013. From The Isle of Youth by Laura van den Berg. Copyright 2013 by Laura van den Berg. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

S OMETIMES IT SEEMS as if the aspiringand financially well enough endowedAmerican writer is offered more than the reader. For the young writer, there are a fast-growing number of MFA programs, fellowships, summer workshops, residencies, creative writing centers, endless books that teach about writing and publishing. For evidence of the opportunities and widespread desire to write in our country, note the sheer number of blogs that populate the Internet, the comment sections of said blogs, Facebook and Twitter (where everyone gets to be a published writer, at least within the confines of a status update or tweet), the self-published army on Amazon.com.

This year, I detected a certain uncertainty in short stories, a sense of disorientation, perhaps a reflection of these unsteady times for publishing and readers. A lot of story writers relied on a characters intuition or impulse to fuel the forward motion of their stories. As a result, many stories tended to wandersometimes intriguingly, often into unsettling territoryrather than accelerate toward some definitive endpoint. While some stories that I read this year were built around or upon some narrative roadwayand many of those appear in this volumeplenty were not.

From my vantage point, there are moments when it seems that more people in this country want to write than read. Many people who read this book are in fact writers in training, reading in order to learn to write better. I myself came to serious reading relatively late, halfway through college, and this was in a class where both reading and creative writing were taught. I soon wanted to give to others the singular high that I felt when reading an Alice Munro or a Margaret Atwood story. I should say that I went to college in Canada.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting to write and seeking help in that endeavor. I am the proud owner of an MFA, a shelf full of books about how to write fiction and how to get published, memoirs by fiction writers, and at least a dozen story anthologies that I bought before I was lucky enough to land this job. But what happens if and when writers begin to outnumber readers? What happens when writing becomes more attractive than reading? Will we becomeor are we alreadya nation of performers with no audience?

For the reader of books, there are book clubs, many informally initiated by friends or neighbors, a smattering of independent bookstores that serve as meeting places for readers and writers, libraries, some websites. Getting books has become easyclick on Amazon.com, and from the sound of it, a drone will soon be able to deliver a book to your door in the time it takes to say drone. But Im talking about accessible, widespread support for reading. Brick-and-mortar bookstores accessible to everyone who would patronize them. Also, a sense in our country that reading fiction is necessary and, dare I say, a wee bit glamorous. Like writing.

I had the good luck to take part in a reading and trivia night the other week at a bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This was a fundraiser for 826 Boston, a fabulous organization that offers writing support for kids. Four of us were invited to read for a few minutes, and then came a rowdy, rambunctious game of literary trivia for the mostly twenty-something audience. In order to win, players needed to have read things. There were questions about