61 Comments

1. March 6th, 2012 / 8:20 am rawbbie—

   I heard this season of The Bachelor is pretty heated.

2. March 6th, 2012 / 8:31 am Sam Cooney—

   stop being a funny person, and just be a person for a bit.

3. March 6th, 2012 / 8:32 am A D Jameson—

    Who wrote that? Is it published serially?

4. March 6th, 2012 / 8:34 am Tohmas—

   “The Rooster,” by Brian Van Reet. Published in Shenandoah…I’m not sure which issue.

5. March 6th, 2012 / 8:40 am A D Jameson—

   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.

6. March 6th, 2012 / 8:43 am rawbbie—

   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.

7. March 6th, 2012 / 8:47 am bmichael—

   To be a little blah, I really liked that bit of Egan’s Goon Squad that was in the New Yorker.

8. March 6th, 2012 / 9:04 am Helen—

   I pretty much love all of Casey Hannan’s stuff that I’ve read. This one sticks out: 
   http://www.pankmagazine.com/piano-hands/

9. March 6th, 2012 / 9:30 am Nathan Thornton—

   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. 

10. March 6th, 2012 / 10:03 am Drew Lerman—

    “Testimony of Pilot,” by Barry Hannah

11. March 6th, 2012 / 10:16 am A D Jameson—

    This is all great, please keep it coming!

12. March 6th, 2012 / 10:43 am Brian Mihok—

    Really loved “If Your Light Must Leave You” by Amanda Goldblatt in The Collagist a while back.

13. March 6th, 2012 / 10:44 am William VanDenBerg—

    “We Will Plan Big Things” by Mary Stone. It incapacitated me for a few hours: http://killauthor.com/issuefifteen/mary-stone/

14. March 6th, 2012 / 11:08 am Ultra Vegina—

    ‘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.

15. March 6th, 2012 / 11:08 am Peter Fontaine—

    Probably the best story I’ve read in the last seven years is Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.”

16. March 6th, 2012 / 11:37 am Victor Schultz—

    maybe “tracking song” or “seven american nights” by gene wolfe. “pu-239” by ken kalfus, maybe.

17. March 6th, 2012 / 11:51 am sam salvador—

    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.

18. March 6th, 2012 / 11:53 am mimi—

    Those of Us in Plaid by Seth Fried  

    it was in McSweeney’s SF Panorama

19. March 6th, 2012 / 12:07 pm A D Jameson—

     Go with whatever “best” means to you.

20. March 6th, 2012 / 12:19 pm Trey—

    I really loved Amina Cain’s “Black Wings” (and nearly everything else in I Go to Some Hollow)

21. March 6th, 2012 / 12:21 pm Trey—

    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

22. March 6th, 2012 / 12:42 pm Dave McLeod—

    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?

23. March 6th, 2012 / 12:45 pm Mark Danowsky—

    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

24. March 6th, 2012 / 12:53 pm Mark Danowsky—

    I can see why. Unique. Strong imagery with Fabulist elements.

25. March 6th, 2012 / 1:23 pm Tohmas—

    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.    

26. March 6th, 2012 / 1:51 pm Mahmoud—

    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.

27. March 6th, 2012 / 1:55 pm Anonymous—

    I’ll throw in another vote for “Mudder Tongue” by Brian Evenson.  That story knocked me on my ear.  

28. March 6th, 2012 / 1:59 pm Alex Estes—

    The Street by Colm Toibin in McSweeney’s 36

29. March 6th, 2012 / 1:59 pm John Minichillo—

    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.

30. March 6th, 2012 / 2:07 pm John Minichillo—

    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.

31. March 6th, 2012 / 2:21 pm Opal Castmin—

    http://www.matchbooklitmag.com/dixon.html

32. March 6th, 2012 / 2:26 pm Annie Bilancini—

    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.

33. March 6th, 2012 / 2:40 pm Rauan Klassnik—

    blake butler’s coming of age story in an airport shuttle filled w/ doe-eyed clergymen

34. March 6th, 2012 / 4:13 pm Richard Thomas—

    “The Paperhanger” by William Gay
    “Puppy” by George Saunders
    “Magic Words” by Jill McCorkle

    those pop into my head immediately

35. March 6th, 2012 / 5:24 pm Lazy Fascist—

     Jeremy Robert Johnson’s “Persistence Hunting” from his collection We Live Inside You.

36. March 6th, 2012 / 5:39 pm Matt Margo—

    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

37. March 6th, 2012 / 5:44 pm Matt Margo—

    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

38. March 6th, 2012 / 5:48 pm barry graham—

    chris adrian – a better angel – the new yorker
    http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/03/060403fi_fiction  

39. March 6th, 2012 / 6:07 pm mdbell79—

    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.

40. March 6th, 2012 / 6:26 pm Andreas Lindhquist—

    Well… best then for me will be Evenson’s Moran’s Mexico, in the collection

41. March 6th, 2012 / 6:30 pm Andreas Lindhquist—

    … in the collection The Wavering Knife, but that was a while back, no so recent.
    Also Exhalation by Ted Chiang is really something.

42. March 6th, 2012 / 7:17 pm Anonymous—

     “Home” by George Saunders in New Yorker June 13, 2011

43. March 7th, 2012 / 12:23 am i am alt lit—

    rip anything out of Scott McClanahan’s Stories V! and call it.

44. March 7th, 2012 / 12:25 am Roxane—

    Truth.

45. March 7th, 2012 / 12:44 am shaun gannon—

    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

46. March 7th, 2012 / 7:31 am Agnieszka's Shoes—

    Oasis by Allyson Armistead http://eightcuts.com/eight-cuts-gallery/into-the-desert/welcome-to-the-desert/breaths/

47. March 7th, 2012 / 10:59 am Andreas Lindhquist—

    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.

48. March 7th, 2012 / 1:27 pm Anonymous—

    “L’Anguille” by Jon Trobaugh in issue 4 of TRNSFR

49. March 7th, 2012 / 3:31 pm Anonymous—

    “Multipls of Cohen” – Heidi Julavits

50. March 7th, 2012 / 5:21 pm Charles Tarane—

    Screen Test, by Leslie Bazzett, in New England Review, Volume 32, #2.  (Last summer, I think.)  Stunner.

51. March 8th, 2012 / 2:24 pm Andreas Lindhquist—

    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’.

52. March 8th, 2012 / 10:08 pm Tyler Gobble—

    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

53. March 9th, 2012 / 3:46 am Dawn West—

    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

54. March 10th, 2012 / 12:45 am A D Jameson—

     I love that one, too, Trey. I reviewed I Go to Some Hollow here.

    Cheers, A

55. March 10th, 2012 / 12:53 am A D Jameson—

    Thanks for all of these!

56. March 10th, 2012 / 12:59 am Trey—

    Oh sweet, thank you!

57. March 10th, 2012 / 2:54 am A D Jameson—

     Sure thing!

58. March 10th, 2012 / 8:48 pm Brian Mihok—

    Duh: 
    http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/if-your-light-must-leave-you.html

59. March 10th, 2012 / 10:55 pm Luke—

    “She-Male” by Alissa Nutting
    “The Monkey Handler” by Rachel B Glaser

60. March 21st, 2012 / 11:57 am A D Jameson—

     Thanks!

61. March 26th, 2012 / 8:01 am The Best Recent Stories: The Results | HTMLGIANT—

    […] little while ago, I asked you all to name “the best story that you’ve read in the past few years.” I […]