The Best American Short Stories
2005 (The Best American Series)
Redraw The Boundaries
The Best American Series First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the
countrys finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volumes
series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special
guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty
or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American
series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.
The Best American Short Stories 2005 includes

Dennis Lehane • Tom Perrotta • Alice Munro • Edward P. Jones • Joy
Williams • Joyce Carol Oates • Thomas McGuane • Kelly Link • Charles
DAmbrosio • Cory Doctorow • George Saunders • and others
Michael Chabon, guest editor, is the best-selling author of The Mysteries of
Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, A Model World, and, most recently, The Final
Solution. His novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the
Pulitzer Prize in 2000.
Personal Review: The Best American Short Stories 2005 (The
Best American Series)
As guest editor, Michael Chabon sets entertainment as the standard for
good writing. Because for Chabon, entertainment is nothing less than
human connection. If we derive pleasure from this connection, it is
because through it we experience something real, visceral, and
intellectual, albeit vicariously.
His mission, therefore, is to restore the fallen status of entertainment. To
do this, he casts a wide net over water "serious" writers and readers often
find too shallow. He trawls the waterways for writing that reeks of ghost
stories, science fiction, detective novels, action movies, and folklore.
Anything that leads to new and unusual forms. (Not surprising for the man
who wrote The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.)
To avoid an exhaustive list, I'll contain myself to quick descriptions of
seven stories inside.
"Until Gwen," by Denis Lehane, has the feel of a detective thriller, or film
noir. It's a murder story told in the second person, with an accurate
rendering of characters who have fallen so far, there's no bottom left to hit.
"Eight Pieces for the Left Hand," by J. Robert Lennon, is a series of eight
folktale-like vignettes that have continuity in recurring themes.
"Death Defier," by Tom Bissell, is war story with an inescapable,
catastrophic ending.
"Anda's Game," by Cory Doctorow, is almost sci-fi. It's the story of a child's
online role-playing game with real-world consequences.
"The Secret Goldfish," by David Means, tells the story of the disintegration
of a marriage from the perspective of the family goldfish.
"The Cousins," by Joyce Carol Oates, tells, in letter form, the story of two
cousins separated by World War II and the Holocaust.

"Hart and Boot," by Tim Pratt, mythologizes the partly true, partly fictional
lives of Wild West figures Pearl hart and John Boot.
Perhaps the best way to judge the quality of an anthology such as this is to
measure how successful the guest editor has been in achieving the goals
he or she set forth in their introduction. If that suits you, then this is a high-
quality product.
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