Laura Furman

I really enjoy the O. Henry Prize Stories series. At least in the awards' current form, the work chosen is much less concerned with setting standards for a theoretical short story canon than showcasing a range of up-to-the-minute fiction and offering a snapshot of what interests contemporary writers at a given time. In this batch, the majority of the 20 featured stories build on how identity—social, racial, cultural, familial, sexual, and otherwise—forms and shifts... maybe that's all show more short stories, but the combination of varied cultures, eras, and experiences throws that area of exploration into slightly sharper relief. And as with previous installments in the series, this one was uneven in parts but never boring.

Standouts for me: Tessa Hadley's "Funny Little Snake," Sarah Hall's "Goodnight Nobody," Weike Wang's "Omakase," Caolinn Hughes's "Prime," Souvankham Thammavongsa's "Slingshot." show less

(I haven't even managed to read my O. Henry Prize Stories 2014 and already 2015 has come out. I'm never going to catch up.)

I like short stories. They're my potato chips or candy, snacking for my brain (even the serious short stories that should be more like a lump in my stomach). I pick up short story books or request them as ARCs because I like reading them. That's why I asked for The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015, okay Introduction? I don't need twenty pages of an English professor show more rah-rah-brigading me about short stories, then summarizing each story, then explaining to me why each story merits inclusion in the collection. Just let me at the stories! I hate introductions.

So let's get to the stories. Hooray! Stories! But they are American. I always struggle to articulate my feelings towards American fiction. The best I've ever come up with is insular. There's a self-importance too, but no one that is mean-spirited. It's not bragging or even humble-bragging. But it's whatever comes with the knowledge that due to population and money and global positioning and power: that being American can mean forcing an influence on the rest of the English speaking world that say me, as a Canadian, cannot force. The stories here vary between US-born to those who have chosen (or are in the process of choosing, as in Manuel Muñoz's "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA") to locate themselves in the States, and this tone of American-ness washes the stories out. Even the ones that are stylistically different (the first person plural of Naira Kuzmich's "The Kingsley Drive Chorus", the fairy tale world of Elizabeth McCracken's "Birdsong from the Radio", the East Africa of Lionel Shriver's "Kilifi Creek") are still similar. One might believe that these were all written by the same author, each story investigating the subtle. It's like there was a memo in 2015: Forget what they told you in high school about short stories. No changes, epiphanies, or surprises. I can't say there are a lot of surprises here. There are a lot of abrupt endings in surprise's place. Many of these stories simply stop in another shared stylistic quirk. I can't be satisfied with a story that simply stops. I feel ripped off.

I should also crown my favourite, simply because the three person jury each wrote a little paragraph at the end regarding their favourite and I guess that's the thing one is supposed to do in collections like this. I'll pick the fairy tale monstrousness of Elizabeth McCracken's "Birdsong from the Radio". That one didn't need to be an American story, in the way some of the other stories needed to be set in the States or inhabited by US-ians. It chose to be an American story. That made me like it best.

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 edited by Laura Furman went on sale September 15, 2015.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. show less

Each year, short story lovers eagerly anticipate two collections of stories: The Best American Short Stories collection published by Houghton Mifflin, and the O. Henry Prize Stories, edited by Laura Furman and published by Anchor. While the "Best American" series contains many worthy stories and authors (this year, the series editor is Salman Rushdie and the winners include Nicole Krauss, A.M. Homes, and Jonathan Lethem), the choices tend to be a bit more conventional than the O. Henry show more stories. For that reason, if I had to pick one short story anthology to read all year, I'd pick the O. Henry, if only to be introduced to writers whose work is unfamiliar to me. (There is a bit of crossover, since Alice Munro, unsurprisingly, turns up in both volumes, as does Steven Millhauser).

This year's series doesn't disappoint. The subjects range from a woman who joins a polyamorous society that she stumbled upon somewhere in an unspecified country outside the United States ("The Necessity of Certain Behaviors" by Sharon Cain) to a pre-teen growing up with her gruff, secretive father in a remote part of America ("Scenes from the Life of the Only Girl in Water Shield, Alaska," by first-time author Tony Tulathimutte) to a composer whose unwilling babysitting for his girlfriend's bird brings unexpected benefits to his art ("A Composer and His Parakeets," by Ha Jin). The narrative forms also vary widely -- we get conventional narrative; a couple of stories written as a series of scenes; and another story that contains no characters at all, save the bizarre, baroque dresses designed by a mysterious fashion designer calling himself "Hyperion" ("A Change in Fashion" by Steven Millhauser, which, thanks to its strange flights of fancy, is at turns the most intriguing and most frustrating story in the collection.)

While not all the stories make a hugely favorable impression ("Bye Bye Natalia," by Michael Faber, about a Russian, HIV-positive mail-order bride, is a bit forced and obvious in spots), there's not a real dud in the lot. Some, like Rose Tremain's little jewel "A Game of Cards," stun with their ability to convey so much truth in such a compact package. Alexi Zentner's "Touch" and Olaf Olafsson's "On the Lake" also deserve special mention for their extraordinarily controlled and beautiful tone -- you find yourself almost holding your breath while reading, for fear you'll break the spell.

If you love short stories -- heck, if you even like short stories -- pick this one up. show less

The stories here skew dark: young folks in peril, missing and dead parents, snake handlers, and guns figure prominently in four out of 19 (and slightly less so in at least a couple of others).

In the judges' discussion of their favorite stories at the back of the book, Tash says, in reference to Mark Haddon's "The Gun," "You never know exactly how to react, for there's never a comfort zone." And I'd extend that to most of the stories in the collection. In a good way, mind you—I loved how show more off-kilter so many of them were. This was a fun collection, even by O. Henry standards, which tend to be weird and good as it is.

I thought Kristen Iskandrian's "The Inheritors" was absolutely outstanding, but I don't doubt there's a favorite for everyone in this collection. show less