The 21 fictions featured in The Best American Short Stories 1999 have very little in common--but whether they're about ranchers or commuters, romantic seekers or New Age pilgrims, what they do share is a sense of urgency. In each of them, there's a kind of voice that announces its need to be heard. "I'm not a bad guy," pleads the narrator of "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," and even though he cheats on his girlfriend, by the end of Junot Diaz's story you might be tempted to agree anyway. (Especially considering the charming way he turns Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener into a verb--as in, "A lot of the time she Bartlebys me, says, 'No, I'd rather not.'") "Real Estate," by that master of bittersweet comedy Lorrie Moore, starts by repeating "Ha! Ha! Ha!" for two solid pages but becomes a rueful take on marriage, house-hunting, and even death: "The body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body was like a sweet dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too, barked the dog."

Other standouts in this collection include Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper," a kind of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" where no one is killed or saved; Rick Bass's haunting evocation of winter in the north country, "The Hermit's Story"; and Tim Gautreax's "The Piano Tuner," about a manic-depressive Creole princess playing cocktail piano in a motel lounge. (This is one tale that truly does end with a bang, not a whimper.) Taken together, they are ample evidence that the American short story is alive, well, and eminently able to--in the words of guest editor Amy Tan--"help us live interesting lives." --Chloe Byrne

Product Description
In making her selections for this year's volume of The Best American Short Stories, Amy Tan was drawn to stories that satisfied her appetite for the magic and mystery she loved as a child. In this vibrant audio collection, fantasy and truth coexist brilliantly in works by veteran writers as well as by accomplished new voices. Each tale, read here by its author, offers a rich journey into a different world.

Some years, I have found the annual anthology more appealing, and some years less so. "The Best American Short Stories, 1999" edited by Amy Tan is very entertaining and more memorable than the collections of the past few years. My acid test is this -- can I remember today the gist of a story I read last month? In other words, did it leave a lasting impression? Tan's selections are holding up pretty well. I won't soon forget 'The Hermit's Story', the first entry in her book. I discovered something very remarkable when I read it, but I can't share it because I don't want to ruin the story for you.

These anthologies reflect the taste of the guest editor, as well as the skill of the chosen writers, but why not? Katrina Kenison, the Series Editor, says there's a surfeit of great material, so why shouldn't the guest editor reflect her outlook with her selection.

I think Tan's stories show she is very interested in the 'minority' viewpoint. You might imagine this occurs because Amy Tan is a Chinese descent American, and maybe it does. However, when I use the term minority I mean interestingly idiosyncratic.

Odd and unusual people populate these stories, and odd things happen to them. Of course, if they didn't have unusual experiences we might not find the energy to finish the page. But oddity alone is not enought to sustain the reader. One has to experience a connection with the character. I came to care what happened to most of these oddballs.

Visualize Pam Houston's character, a young woman who says, " When I was four years old and with my parents in Palm Beach, Florida, I pulled a seven-hundred-pound cement urn off its pedestal and onto my legs crushing both femurs." Or, consider this excerpt from Melissa Hardy's tale, "'Once,' Mrs Flowers told George, 'she ate a whole pile of socks I was fixing to darn. Another time she ate a Bible'." I feel frustration, sorrow, and/or amusement when I read these words. The stories grip, they entertain, they amuse. The are some of America's best short stories.


Some good   January 3, 2000
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Personally, I think Amy Tan is a fantastic author and I loved her introduction. However, I am probably in the minority in that I did not enjoy the Rick Bass story at all. It seemed to me that that story was attempting to shove the author's intentions of what the story was about down my throat. But hey, that's just my opinion. I loved "The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars" and "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter", but didn't think such stories as "Kansas" should have been included. It's not such a bad collection and it's interesting to read the vast array of short stories.


No Exit   October 24, 1999
 6 out of 12 found this review helpful

I suppose if you like the tone and style found typically in BEST SHORT STORIES of XXXX you'll like this. For me, I find them--and especially this one--boring. After having read it, I was left with absolutely nothing: no profound revelation, no mental challenge, no rivalry at any sort of level. A sort of hell with no exit, with each turn of the page, each turn to a new story, a sort of rolling of the rock uphill. I finally had to put it down in the middle of THE BEST GIRLFRIEND.... In these stories, people live, people search, people quest...for fulfillment of common desires or exit out of circumstances that are simply silly. And in the end, nothing new is learned, no revelation discovered, not even a glimpse of some shadow of a holy grail. Just time precious time wasted that can never be recovered. Better to spend that time sitting in the corner, watching the spiders hunt. These books enlighten you nil.


Understated and dream-like   December 4, 1999
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I have to admit, I really really loved this book. I don't get the time to read that often, and the short stories in here are exactly the kind that I like to lose myself in. Sure, some are a little bit slow-moving, but it's not a tedious slow, it's a Zen-slow. My favorites include Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter and The Piano Tuner. A great find, highly reccomended.


A very good collection of stories   November 17, 1999
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

I have to disagree with the other reviewers. Okay, there are a few duds -- but there are every year. This is a very good collection, and anyone who says that it is not does not like literary fiction. This is a surprisingly well rounded story-based collection, perhaps a bit slow moving, but rich and rewarding. Nathan Englander's allegorical story "The Tumblers" is worth the price of admission alone. And then there are excellent stories by Rick Bass, Annie Proulx, Hester Kaplan, Tim Gautreaux and others.