March 6th, 2012 / 8:04 am
Snippets
Snippets
A D Jameson—
What’s the best story that you’ve read in the past few years?
(Yes, I will eventually tabulate the results in a post—so vote! And include a link, if it’s online & if you can.)
I heard this season of The Bachelor is pretty heated.
stop being a funny person, and just be a person for a bit.
Who wrote that? Is it published serially?
“The Rooster,” by Brian Van Reet. Published in Shenandoah…I’m not sure which issue.
You know, I’d actually include that, if one could read it. I’ve never really thought about it, but I probably have a pretty broad notion of what constitutes a story.
come on? we all know courtney is full of shit.
ps: i can’t not be a person.
pps: Exits Are isn’t a person either.
To be a little blah, I really liked that bit of Egan’s Goon Squad that was in the New Yorker.
I pretty much love all of Casey Hannan’s stuff that I’ve read. This one sticks out:
http://www.pankmagazine.com/piano-hands/
I was really blown away by Nathaniel Rich’s “The Northeast Kingdom” which appears in McSweeney’s #38. It’s an amazing story about family and community and the pitfalls of being special. Sharply written characters and whippet-fast pacing make for a really compelling read. Great stuff.
“Testimony of Pilot,” by Barry Hannah
This is all great, please keep it coming!
Really loved “If Your Light Must Leave You” by Amanda Goldblatt in The Collagist a while back.
“We Will Plan Big Things” by Mary Stone. It incapacitated me for a few hours: http://killauthor.com/issuefifteen/mary-stone/
‘Best’ depends on what you’re after. I’ve read a few “best” stories in the past few years. As far as getting my head fucked, of reminding myself what the word awe-someness means, Greg Egan’s Crystal Nights still resonates after four years.
http://ttapress.com/downloads/CrystalNights.pdf
Brian Evenson’s Mudder Tongue still resonates strongly, for different reasons. I read that one only a few months ago.
Probably the best story I’ve read in the last seven years is Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.”
maybe “tracking song” or “seven american nights” by gene wolfe. “pu-239” by ken kalfus, maybe.
really loved steve almond’s “donkey greedy, donkey get punched” in a tin house a few yrs back. something about wallace’s “incarnation with burned children” sticks with me in some small unsettled part of my animal heart, & i think i read Oblivion 1.5 yrs ago.
Those of Us in Plaid by Seth Fried
it was in McSweeney’s SF Panorama
Go with whatever “best” means to you.
I really loved Amina Cain’s “Black Wings” (and nearly everything else in I Go to Some Hollow)
I don’t know if the text is anywhere online, but I did a quick search and I did find what is evidently an audio recording of it. haven’t heard it, but just in case anyone wants to
http://apostrophecast.com/labels/amina%20cain.html
Leaving the Atocha Station – Ben Lerner. But then I’m halfway through #2 in The Hunger Games and loving that, so what do I know?
Best is tough to say, but Adam Peterson’s “It Goes Without Saying” in Issue 3 of Camera Obscura is a worthwhile read. I go into greater detail in my review. If interested follow this link:
http://www.newpages.com/literary-magazine-reviews/2011-08-30/#Camera-Obscura-3-Summer-Fall-2011
I can see why. Unique. Strong imagery with Fabulist elements.
Oh, and another delightful story would be “Claim”, by Glen Pouciau. The Paris Review published that one ( http://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/5851/claim-glen-pourciau ). He also published some really swell reads in Avery and the NE Review, neither of which are available online.
Also, I recently read a pre-“Then We Came to the End” Joshua Ferris story called “Mrs. Blue.” I loved it so much I made a photocopy of it at the library. I keep it in my folder of essential stories. You can find it The Iowa Review. Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall, 1999), pp. 34-46, according to JSTOR, which offers a preview of the story.
Another Star by Ingvar Bjornsen –McSweeney’s 35. That whole issue was killer, but that may be the best short story I’ve ever read.
I’ll throw in another vote for “Mudder Tongue” by Brian Evenson. That story knocked me on my ear.
The Street by Colm Toibin in McSweeney’s 36
I think about this one a lot: Said Sayrafiezadeh’s “A Brief Encounter With the Enemy”
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2012/01/16/120116fi_fiction_sayrafiezadeh
This is an old one but there’s a recording of it being read at New Yorker podcast, James Salter’s “Last Night”.
And this is one that nearly made me weepy when I recently read it to a class, Stepen adixon’s “Wife in Reverse”: http://www.matchbooklitmag.com/Dixon.
Pinckney Benedict’s “The Beginning’s of Sorrow”
Not online but you can get the digital edition of Miracle Boy and Other Stories at Amazon for $3.33.
http://www.matchbooklitmag.com/dixon.html
Can’t find a proper link, but Aimee Bender’s “The Color Master” chewed me up and spit me out a few times. Found it first in The Cincinnati Review, then again in My Mother She Killed Me My, Father He Ate Me.
blake butler’s coming of age story in an airport shuttle filled w/ doe-eyed clergymen
“The Paperhanger” by William Gay
“Puppy” by George Saunders
“Magic Words” by Jill McCorkle
those pop into my head immediately
Jeremy Robert Johnson’s “Persistence Hunting” from his collection We Live Inside You.
I wrote this poem last year, and I feel that its contents would accurately serve as an answer to this question: http://allwritethen.org/?p=1035
Also, the story that I’ve most recently read is “Currents” by Hannah Voskuil.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/tip-sheet/article/49796-excerpt-a-coming-of-age-reader-for-the-add-d.html
chris adrian – a better angel – the new yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/03/060403fi_fiction
Mike Meginnis’s “The Navigators” is still probably my favorite new story from the last year, and it’s been almost a year since I read it.
Well… best then for me will be Evenson’s Moran’s Mexico, in the collection
… in the collection The Wavering Knife, but that was a while back, no so recent.
Also Exhalation by Ted Chiang is really something.
“Home” by George Saunders in New Yorker June 13, 2011
rip anything out of Scott McClanahan’s Stories V! and call it.
Truth.
3 years ago i read “brilliant science” by spencer holst in a flash fiction anthology and i had to stop because i started crying in a full lecture hall
i still haven’t finished it
it is the best story i have ever read
Oasis by Allyson Armistead http://eightcuts.com/eight-cuts-gallery/into-the-desert/welcome-to-the-desert/breaths/
I forgot the link to Exhalation, here it is:
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Ted%20Chiang.html
I don’t think the Evenson story is online.
“L’Anguille” by Jon Trobaugh in issue 4 of TRNSFR
“Multipls of Cohen” – Heidi Julavits
Screen Test, by Leslie Bazzett, in New England Review, Volume 32, #2. (Last summer, I think.) Stunner.
Moran’s Mexico is on googlebooks:
http://books.google.es/books?id=1Pt2QxIdhfMC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=%22moran%27s+mexico%22&source=bl&ots=YGeG3a9886&sig=bf4INaoSrDWMBgpjYG1yOAIV2TI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f_dYT4eECJOv8QO0osn0Dg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22moran%27s%20mexico%22&f=false
I think you can read the complete story, no page seems to be ‘missing’.
The first ones that came to mind–
Bobby Kennedy and His Sea Lion Sandy by Anthony Luebbert– http://quickfiction.org/read/2112/bobby-kennedy-and-his-sea-lion-sandy/
Dredge by Matt Bell– http://asu.edu/piper/publications/haydensferryreview/issue45/index.html
Digging Deep by Ashley Farmer—
http://killauthor.com/issuefifteen/ashley-farmer/
A Half-Sketched Head by Mary Ruefle from The Most of It
Some of my favorites (single published stories, not from favorite collections, that’s too hard):
They Take You by Kyle Minor
Graphy, or The Girlhood of Achilles by Elaine Castillo
Do You Have a Place For Me by Roxane Gay
La Negra Blanca by Roxane Gay
Winter by Heart by Charles Dodd White
Underskirts by Kirsty Logan
The Opposite of Free by Angi Becker Stevens
Virgin by April Ayers Lawson
I love that one, too, Trey. I reviewed I Go to Some Hollow here.
Cheers, A
Thanks for all of these!
Oh sweet, thank you!
Sure thing!
Duh:
http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/if-your-light-must-leave-you.html
“She-Male” by Alissa Nutting
“The Monkey Handler” by Rachel B Glaser
Thanks!
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