The Best American Short Stories 2004 Author:Lorrie Moore Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best piec... more »es by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. Lorrie Moore brings her keen eye for wit and surprise to the volume, and The Best American Short Stories 2004 is an eclectic and enthralling gathering of well-known voices and talented up-and-comers. Here are stories that probe the biggest issues: ambition, gender, romance, war. Here are funny and touching and striking tales of a Spokane Indian, the estranged wife of an Iranian immigrant, an American tutor in Bombay. In her introduction Lorrie Moore writes, "The stories collected here impressed me with their depth of knowledge and feeling of character, setting, and situation . . . They spoke with amused intelligence, compassion, and dispassion."
What you pawn I will redeem / Sherman Alexie --
Tooth and claw / T. Coraghessan Boyle --
Written in stone / Catherine Brady --
Accomplice / Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum --
Screenwriter / Charles D'Ambrosio --
Breasts / Stuart Dybek --
Some other, better Otto / Deborah Eisenberg --
Grace / Paula Fox --
The tutor / Nell Freudenberger --
A rich man / Edward P. Jones --
Limestone diner / Trudy Lewis --
Intervention / Jill McCorkle --
Gallatin Canyon / Thomas McGuane --
Runaway / Alice Munro --
All Saints Day / Angela Pneuman --
What kind of furniture would Jesus pick? / Annie Proulx --
Docent / R.T. Smith --
The walk with Elizanne / John Updike --
Mirror studies / Mary Yukari Waters --
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence / John Edgar Wideman« less