New American Stories
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New American Stories, an anthology of short fiction edited by Ben Marcus, started off with a bang. Marcus wrote an introduction about the power of short stories that really resonated with me. It ushered me back into the mindset that short stories can change the way we see the world and reveal things about ourselves that aren’t easily excavated otherwise. Not to be cheesy and gross, but I really believe that. Sure, long-form fiction can be similarly moving, but when I conjure fiction that has made the most impact on me over the years, they’re almost always short stories.
Marcus sought to deliver a collection that “shows just what a short story can do.” As a result, the 32 stories are wildly different in form and content. The unifying factor is whether or not a story took seed in Marcus’ mind. If he read a short story and couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, it landed in the collection.
I like this approach for several reasons. One, it kept me on my toes-- I never knew what I was going to get next. Two, I didn’t need to rush. I could pace myself through the book-- reading a story at a time, reading a different book, and then coming back to the collection, etc. You get it. Three, it exposed me to a bunch of new authors. It has a few authors that I recognize: Don DeLillo, George Saunders, Anthony Doerr, & Zadie Smith. But mostly, they were voices I had never heard and now I can be on the prowl for their work in the future.
Overall, New American Stories is the most experimental anthology I’ve read. The Best American Short Stories collections are still near and dear to my heart, but I enjoyed getting a taste of crazier, more provocative short stories. I mean, some of this stuff is really out there. For instance, “Play” by Mathias Svalina reimagined children’s games as dark, twisted versions emphasizing mortality. It’s difficult to say that I liked the stories. I mostly found them interesting and respected the author’s creativity. My biggest complaint is slightly unfair; I was sometimes dissatisfied with the endings because, in their experimental nature, most of them did not have closure in the conventional sense. Lots of ellipses.
I’ll sing praises of the short-story format forever and ever, and if you’re looking for a 750-page collection with a whole lot of range, this is your best bet. New American Stories receives 3 out of 5 flames. I think I like the concept more than I like the execution, but as Marcus hoped for, some of the weirdest stories have taken seed.
