Description: Presents essays by leading short-story writers on their favorite American short stories and why they like them. It will send readers to the library or bookstore to read - or re-read - the stories selected.
Brief description: JACKSON R. BRYER is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Maryland.
Review Quotes: It is hard for an Englishman to confess, but Americans excel at the short story, and here is the proof. And what better guide could you have than fellow writers who explain why each story deserves our attention, in the process crucially revealing something of themselves. These are not critics deconstructing a text but authors explaining why, for them, each story lives on the pulse, and why, therefore, it might for us. Is a short story less compelling than a novel? You might as well ask whether a sonnet is less powerful than a narrative poem. It is the very form, the discipline, the intensity, which, as in the case of this remarkable collection, engraves it on the mind.----Christopher Bigsby, novelist, biographer, and critic