The Oxford Book of American Short Stories
*Starred Review* Short-story master Oates resumes her editorial command to refit this cornerstone anthology for the twenty-first century. As in the first edition, published 20 years ago, Oates begins with such classic American writers as Hawthorne, Poe, Wharton, and Cather and moves on to Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Welty, Baldwin, and Cheever. But she now includes H. P. Lovecraft, Nelson Algren, Stephen King, T. C. Boyle, Amy Hempel, Ha Jin, David Foster Wallace, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Junot Diaz. Deeply schooled in the history of the form, Oates suggests that “the most profound change in the American short story” may be “the movement from the mythic to the anecdotal, from a mode of impersonal storytelling . . . to a mode of storytelling that is intensely personal, self-conscious, and narrated in a distinctive ‘voice.’” This, along with a multiplicity of cultures and “unifying issues,” has radically altered American fiction in parallel with social transformations, and Oates’ striking selections embody this literary vitality and the embracing empathy it engenders. Oates’ “personal definition of the form is that it represents a concentration of imagination,” and the resulting “intensification” is evident and thrilling in every short story she presents, each preceded by a lively author miniprofile. The result is a substantial and superb treasury that will deepen every fiction collection. --Donna Seaman