The Best American Short Stories 2024
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4.1 • 7 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, author of Matrix and The Vaster Wilds, and series editor Heidi Pitlor.
“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” A man becomes a tourist in his own hometown. An unemployed jeweler sails in an antique slave ship. A therapist decides to call an ex-patient years after their last session. Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”
The Best American Short Stories 2024 includes JAMEL BRINKLEY • ALEXANDRA CHANG • LAURIE COLWIN • MOLLY DEKTAR • TAISIA KITAISKAIA • DANIEL MASON • JIM SHEPARD • AZAREEN VAN DER VLIET OLOOMI • PAUL YOON • and others
Customer Reviews
A Myriad of Experiences
Every collection of the Best American Short Stories carries a tone and theme in its own. The 2024 edition is a diverse collection of lived experiences across place and time. Every orientation, gender, race, class, and circumstance is represented and explored. Guest Editor Lauren Groff has carved out an edition that stands out.
Every story offers powerful commentary on the shortfalls of modern life and struggling with one’s own lived experience. My favorite quote from the collection perfectly captures the the malaise of modernity. “America unfurled in every direction…Even the homeless pushed shopping carts here.” – Alexis, “Democracy in America.” For all the progress, the absurd remains.
Many of the stories offer a first person perspective which makes one wonder where memoir ends and fiction begins. I tired to select some favorite stories from the collection but the reading truly got better and better as you go along. This collection reaffirmed why the short story is my favorite form of story telling. Brief vignettes into the lives of others while still managing to say something profound.