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FICTION Review - Best New American Voices 2008 by Richard Bausch (Editor) Harvest, 2007 Review by Tony O'Brien Jan 29th 2008 (Volume 12, Issue 5)
This is an anthology of seventeen short stories selected from hundreds nominated by various 'top notch' US writing programs and 'prestigious summer conferences'. The voices are 'new' in the sense that they are not yet established, although there are a few with an enviable publication record. They are also, at least some of them, 'new' in the sense that they attempt new themes and new areas of exploration, although in the main the stories are fairly traditional narratives. Anthologies are always problematic to review. These stories have been selected twice; once by their writing program and once by editor Richard Bausch. I found the quality of these stories variable. The best were pleasurable and interesting; some just didn't appeal at all. The collection contains a number of coming of age stories. In Men and Boys (Orianne Gabrielle Delfosse) twenty seven year old camp guides who reflects on her relationship with an Older Man (he's fifty...yes, fifty!) and he reminds her of dying. She'd like to be fifteen again, something she achieves vicariously by the end of the story. More Men Than Mortal (Elizabeth Kedetsky) follows the life of a bicycle courier after the breakup of her marriage. The enigmatically titled No One Here Says What They Mean (Stefan McKinstray) involves a young man's first sexual experience against a background of death and a rather odd couple who run a bakery. I liked the sheer strangeness of this story.
If the term 'Moodyesque' hasn't been coined yet, now might be the time. Garth Risk Hallberg's contribution Early Humans, besides providing one of the more intriguing titles, is a frenetic story featuring a main character who can't sit still. It reminded me a little of Moody's The Diviners, at least in mood. The main character has a human core, realized through his relationship with his father. But he tests your patience with his short attention span and ad-agency language. A few stories, it seemed, tried too hard to break out of the realist mould. In Inheritance by Jelediah Berry a man inherits a beast from his father. This causes certain problems. The Man Who Ate Nelson Rockefeller (Christopher Stokes) features a wily native and a rather naïve explorer. Interesting stories, but sort of stretching suspension of disbelief. I liked the realist stories, like Dan Pinkerton's Headlock, where Mr March, the shopwork teacher and the boorish adolescent Brunk find that despite being adversaries they have something in common. Tucker Capps' Alice is another story of a father-daughter relationship that transcends a generational gap; Lauren Groff's Surfacing combines some historical detail of the 1918 flu epidemic with a vivid and touching story about forbidden love. Leslie Jamison's Quiet Men is a low key study of relationships.
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A number of the stories are set in foreign locales, although there is notably nothing set in current conflict zones. Sharon May's The Wizard of Kaho-I-Dang is a stand-out story that revisits the killing fields of Cambodia, seen through the eyes of a returning refugee. The other main characters are Arlington Park Artemis Fowl Australian, and May creates a moving personal narrative heavily influenced by As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me its political context. The Wizard of Kaho-I-Dang is a powerful and affecting story.
Asking For Murder There are some instances where editor Richard Bausch could have made more use of his red pencil. Peter Mountford's Atonement Away Laughing on a Fast Camel story Horizons, while perhaps a little self-consciously historical in its recounting of the Sri Lankan civil war, nevertheless Babylon and Other Stories convincingly evokes intergenerational tension between mother and daughter. Mother is a world weary hippy; Daughter Lucy is the Bad Boy more realistic modern young woman. As Lucy reflects on the death, years ago, of her brother, Mountford tells us: "When Lucy Bad Seed thought about Jordan she wept." But instead of leaving us with Lucy's grief he adds the Hallmark afterthought: "She cried not Bag Of Bones because he was gone, but because he had taken part of her with him...". Then, as if to add gravity: "...and left her with a gaping Balancing Acts cavity and an intractable lesson in the scope of permanence." Barbara the Slut and Other People Beach Road This is an enjoyable collection in the way school displays of students' work are enjoyable. You'll see some great stuff, a Beat the Reaper few things you don't care for, but plenty of evidence that the kids are trying hard. A wise person once told me that the difference Beautiful Girls between talent and success is persistence. Here are seventeen new writers with talent. Time will tell if they have persistence. Bed of Roses Before I Go to Sleep © 2008 Tony O'Brien Before the Frost Beg the Question Tony O'Brien is a short story writer and lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand: Beginner's Greek
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