Added by 3 members
The Best American Short Stories 1988
(1988)(A book in the Best American Short Stories series)
An anthology of stories edited by Mark Helprin and Shannon Ravenel
Publisher's Weekly
This at times inspired anthologywhich draws from small and big-gun literary magazines in equal measuresis heralded by a sonorous, sagacious introduction that pulsates with profound love ''for language that can be as beautiful and hypnotic as song.'' Helprin is also disdainful of minimalists, revisionists who ''make literature the servant of politics,'' publishers who put out ''astonishing junk'' and ''back scratching among writers.'' C. S. Godshalk pens a piercing delineation of a boy's wrenching love-hate feelings for a mother who abandons him and a younger brother; and Gish Jen limns a charming reflection by a Chinese-American woman who is wistful for a youth when ''the world was a place that could be set right: one had only to direct the hand of the Almighty and say, just here, Lord, we hurt here.'' A husband's nightmares presage the sundering of his marriage in a vividly authentic tale by Richard Bausch; and a man's appropriation in a dream of the experiences of a Vietnam veteran propels his therapist/social worker, a vet, on a drinking jag in an exalting story by Robert Stone.
Genre: Literary Fiction
This at times inspired anthologywhich draws from small and big-gun literary magazines in equal measuresis heralded by a sonorous, sagacious introduction that pulsates with profound love ''for language that can be as beautiful and hypnotic as song.'' Helprin is also disdainful of minimalists, revisionists who ''make literature the servant of politics,'' publishers who put out ''astonishing junk'' and ''back scratching among writers.'' C. S. Godshalk pens a piercing delineation of a boy's wrenching love-hate feelings for a mother who abandons him and a younger brother; and Gish Jen limns a charming reflection by a Chinese-American woman who is wistful for a youth when ''the world was a place that could be set right: one had only to direct the hand of the Almighty and say, just here, Lord, we hurt here.'' A husband's nightmares presage the sundering of his marriage in a vividly authentic tale by Richard Bausch; and a man's appropriation in a dream of the experiences of a Vietnam veteran propels his therapist/social worker, a vet, on a drinking jag in an exalting story by Robert Stone.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for Mark Helprin's The Best American Short Stories 1988