Full Description
Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, an annual anthology of exceptional short fiction rooted in the western United States, debuted in 1988 and continued publication until 1992. Recognizing that the West remains rewarding territory for literary explorations, James Thomas and D. Seth Horton revived the series in 2009.
Best of the West 2011: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri is the latest volume in what has become one of the nation's most important anthologies. Editors Horton and Thomas have chosen twenty stories by writers including Rick Bass, T. C. Boyle, Ron Carlson, Philipp Meyer, Dagoberto Gilb, Yiyun Li, Antonya Nelson, and Sam Shepard. Subjects vary from an Idaho family that breeds lions and tigers with disastrous results, to a Mormon veteran whose mind is taken over by a nineteenth-century consciousness, to a Texas boy who spends an afternoon with Bonnie and Clyde shortly before their deaths. Taken together, these stories suggest that the West has become one of the most exciting and diverse literary regions in the twenty-first century.
Contents
Editor's Note, D. Seth Horton
Foreword, Ana Castillo
Coach, from The Idaho Review, by Rick Bass
The Silence, from The Atlantic, by T. C. Boyle
Escape from Prison, from Tin House, by Ron Carlson
Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard, from Glimmer Train, by K. L. Cook
Melinda, from The Kenyon Review, by Judy Doenges
Uncle Rock, from The New Yorker, by Dagoberto Gilb
Drive, from The Gettysburg Review, by Aaron Gwyn
Looking for Boll Weevil, from From the Hilltop, by Toni Jensen
Two Years, from Narrative, by Tim Johnston
Same as It Was When You Left, from The Bat City Review, by Alyssa Knickerbocker
Nevada, from The Southern Humanities Review, by Kate Krautkramer
Lunch Across the Bridge, from The Antioch Review, by Peter Lasalle
Alone, from The New Yorker, by Yiyun Li
Horn Hunter, from The Antioch Review, by Michael J. Macleod
What You Do Out Here, When You're Alone, from The New Yorker, by Philipp Meyer
iff, from Tin House, by Antonya Nelson
Creatures of the Kingdom, from Epoch, by Stephanie Reents
Five Shorts, from Day Out of Days: Stories, by Sam Shepard
Opposition in All Things, from Ecotone, by Shawn Vestal
The Last Thing We Need, from Granta, by Claire Vaye Watkins
Other Notable Western Stories of the Year
Publications Reviewed
Notes on Contributors
Credits
