To prove their audacious pronouncement, George Garrett and Paul Ruffin have assembled thirty-one stories representing the best of recent Southern fiction. Born of a Texas Review competition to honor outstanding new writing, the collection snowballed as Garrett and Ruffin realized Southern fiction of the 1990s merits a gathering all its own.
Some writers are well known while others are virtually unknown.
Unified by excellence as much as by region, these works comprise the most representative and entertaining collection of short Southern fiction to be published in decades. The Sorrows of Fat City is one of Garrett's most recent books. Paul Ruffin is founding editor of the Texas Review, professor of English at Sam Houston State University, and member of the Texas Institute of Letters. If you did not enter this site from our home page, click here.