Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards (Pen / O. Henry Prize Stories)
The best of these tales capture a particular era--usually modern--with emphasis on its sexual mores. In Alison Baker's first prize-winning "Better Be Ready 'Bout Half Past Eight," a scientist/poet agonizes over choosing a gift for a shower celebrating his co-worker's preparation for a sex-change operation. When a friend's baby accidentally dies in her arms, the protagonist of Lorrie Moore's "Terrific Mother" can't shake the aftereffects even during a peculiar honeymoon at an Italian villa where academics gather. The narrator of Stuart Dybek's "We Didn't" recalls an early, unconsummated relationship, including the night on the beach when he and his girlfriend almost did it but were interrupted by police officers pulling the dead body of a young woman from the water. In "Not the Phil Donahue Show" by Kelly Cherry, a nurse caring for an ailing AIDS patient learns to accept that her 20-year-old daughter is a lesbian, while the eponymous heroine of Janice Eidus's "Pandora's Box" suddenly recalls after her father's funeral that he had sexually abused her as a child. The surprises in this well-chosen collection are small, domestic ones that sink in gradually.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.