Two more stories from Roxane Gay's Best American anthology.
71. "Everything Is Far from Here," Christina Henríquez, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Just terribly, terribly sad. A refugee at a detention center searches and waits for her child, from whom she was separated during the trek from their home (in Mexico or Central America, in a region riven by gang violence). The stories from the border need to be told, but the people who most need to hear them are not likely reading this collection, and even if they are, they can dismiss it as an exaggerated fiction. It's all too much not an exaggerated fiction. What got to me most, really, is not even the anguish of the missing child, but the casual attitude of the immigration attorney toward the sexual violence from which the protagonist has fled. Just a visceral shudder from beginning to end.
72. "Good With Boys," Kristen Iskandrian, in Best American Short Stories 2018
A smart and compassionate move by Gay, to choose something light and humorous to follow the gut punch of Henríquez's story. A boy-crazy middle-schooler (unspecified, but probably 5th or 6th grade) spends a museum field trip with her class angling to get close to a boy she has a crush on; she is thwarted by the boy’s mother, a chaperone for the trip, and by the boy’s evident preference for another boy in the class. A very sweet story.
73. "Control Negro," Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Something about this story rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it shares a certain flavor of choir-preaching with the Henríquez story; the readers who need to be convinced of the reality of the kind of bias recounted in this story won’t be moved by it. Perhaps it suffers from that even more than the Henríquez story, because while that story could have been a recounting of true facts, this one has a bit of an improbable premise: a black professor gets a married student pregnant, and then secretly shapes and monitors the child’s entire life, ensuring he has the same advantages and experiences as the “Average Caucasian Male.” The purpose is an experiment; the child is a “control” in the experimental sense, to prove that a black kid whose upbringing is indistinguishable from that of the Average Caucasian Male is nevertheless hobbled by systemic racism and individual bias. Anyone likely to enjoy this story already knows this is true; the creepy conceit of the experiment certainly won’t make it more plausible to the skeptical.
—
That leaves me with 27 stories to go and 13 weeks left in the year. I can still get to 100 but it's going to take a bit of discipline to keep up the pace, especially when I finish this anthology. And I'm already thinking about how to modify my goals for next year -- like setting a specific goal for stories written in the past 5 years or 10 years.
_______________________
Goal for 2019: 100 short stories
Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.
71. "Everything Is Far from Here," Christina Henríquez, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Just terribly, terribly sad. A refugee at a detention center searches and waits for her child, from whom she was separated during the trek from their home (in Mexico or Central America, in a region riven by gang violence). The stories from the border need to be told, but the people who most need to hear them are not likely reading this collection, and even if they are, they can dismiss it as an exaggerated fiction. It's all too much not an exaggerated fiction. What got to me most, really, is not even the anguish of the missing child, but the casual attitude of the immigration attorney toward the sexual violence from which the protagonist has fled. Just a visceral shudder from beginning to end.
72. "Good With Boys," Kristen Iskandrian, in Best American Short Stories 2018
A smart and compassionate move by Gay, to choose something light and humorous to follow the gut punch of Henríquez's story. A boy-crazy middle-schooler (unspecified, but probably 5th or 6th grade) spends a museum field trip with her class angling to get close to a boy she has a crush on; she is thwarted by the boy’s mother, a chaperone for the trip, and by the boy’s evident preference for another boy in the class. A very sweet story.
73. "Control Negro," Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Something about this story rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it shares a certain flavor of choir-preaching with the Henríquez story; the readers who need to be convinced of the reality of the kind of bias recounted in this story won’t be moved by it. Perhaps it suffers from that even more than the Henríquez story, because while that story could have been a recounting of true facts, this one has a bit of an improbable premise: a black professor gets a married student pregnant, and then secretly shapes and monitors the child’s entire life, ensuring he has the same advantages and experiences as the “Average Caucasian Male.” The purpose is an experiment; the child is a “control” in the experimental sense, to prove that a black kid whose upbringing is indistinguishable from that of the Average Caucasian Male is nevertheless hobbled by systemic racism and individual bias. Anyone likely to enjoy this story already knows this is true; the creepy conceit of the experiment certainly won’t make it more plausible to the skeptical.
—
That leaves me with 27 stories to go and 13 weeks left in the year. I can still get to 100 but it's going to take a bit of discipline to keep up the pace, especially when I finish this anthology. And I'm already thinking about how to modify my goals for next year -- like setting a specific goal for stories written in the past 5 years or 10 years.
_______________________
Goal for 2019: 100 short stories
Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.