| Author | Message | ||
     Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 7872 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Man, am just skimming it now--but except for Oscar Wao--a novel excerpt by the way it is almost laughably bad. I may eat my hat when I sit down to go through in depth but I don't think so. I mean, hell. This is supposed to be the Best (though not necessarily the most popular) I guess in 2008 there was nothing from Morrison, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman, or Angelou or McPherson or Reed or Baraka, Moseley, I can think of lots of name--which alone would make it on name alone. I think if I had been editor, I would have just gotten hold of the editors of Calaloo and asked them to come up with names, the editors to come up with names, looked to the best sellers and come up with names-- I think the problem is with short fiction. It is dying. It was nurtured by periodicals and newspapers. Neither one carries short fiction any more. Plus if you are a NY Times Bestselling author, or even on Essense, it does not make financial sense. You put in work sometimes with these short pieces, sometimes so much that you did at least a novella's worth of work (I got UNPUBLISHED short story files thick as a draft of a novella) and you still only get short story money. We ain't got no acknowledged master of the short story--no O.Henry, no DeMaupassant, no Hemingway,no Raymond Carver that I know of. Anybody know of anybody? Anyway I'll come back to this. Anybody review it? I wouldn't review it because my policy is to only review books I like. I have put up my tomahawk. Any bum can run somebody else down. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. | ||
| Nom_de_plume Veteran Poster Username: Nom_de_plume Post Number: 193 Registered: 07-2006 Rating: N/A |
I definitely think Wideman is; he is even the only black author to win the Rea Award for it. This is my favorite subject too. I wish ZZ Packer would come out with a new collection, but her next project is a novel about Buffalo Soldiers. You know what I am TEARING my way through? Richard Yates's collected stories! He is amazing. I'm so thrilled to find someone that I love as much or even more than Andre Dubus, who I think Yates taught at Iowa. I have this anthology you are talking about and I've had a review copy since October? Haven't even really read it yet because I too was disappointed in it. I also have the nonfiction one but need to take a closer look at that...I never used to read short fiction but now it's almost all I read. I really need to organize my library and write down all of the collections I have and post about them. A recent anthology that I LOVE is It's All Love by Marita Golden; it's black writers on love, etc. That is VERY much worth purchasing... | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 7878 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
I wish ZZ Packer would come out with a new collection, but her next project is a novel about Buffalo Soldiers. (Also she works very slowly as have all who have been maimed by the Iowa Writers Program. I am a little farther along, Chris Abani has a piece called "Albino Crow" that is at least well written. Gawd, every other story is a writer failing, a musician failing. I suppose American Literary Fiction is still struggling with Heminway's dictum "Write What You Know"--which that old rummy violated at every turn. Maybe we should tell writers to "Write What You DON'T know". It is little wonder that a reader, seeking relief from a frustrating life, doesn't want to experience it in his literature--particularly literature that is hard to read. More later. | ||
| Latimer Regular Poster Username: Latimer Post Number: 20 Registered: 06-2004 Rating: |
We have some good short story writers in our midst. I don't know if you guys are confining your search only to the US. But Earl Lovelace from Trinidad, West Indies is a damn good short story writer. Check out his book a Brief Conversion and also Roger Mais from Jamaica. I have also been reading a collection called Stories by Ron Raye from the island of Barbados. This collection is worth a read. He also has another collection called, The Intruder, ISBN #0-9749674-3-2 available from Amazon.com | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 7880 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
I don't know if you guys are confining your search only to the US. ("you guys"????? Gerald Early and E Lynn Harris put this together. You should direct your comments to them. They have, though. There is a story, "Cell One"by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche--Is THAT Black enuf for ya?) That is set entirely in Nigeria and that I would recommend--it poses the question of whether the gangsta phenomenon is universal or is spreading through the spread of U.S. culture. Also, a story named"Orb Weaver" by Emily Robiteau. The language was Hemingwayesque, fitting because it stands the plot of the Hemingway story "Up in Michigan" on it's head by setting it at a writers conference and narrating it from the POV of the female (named Liz Coates in the original, I belive. Samuel R. Delaney as a novel excerpt called Dark Revelations which you might get a kick out of if you are a mature and seasoned poet and which you may want to avoid if you are just starting out ("Orb Weaver" might also--do the editors have an axe to grind against their publishers and editors? Am about 2/3 of the way thru now) | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 7884 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Finally finished. The last 1/3 of the book is Young Adult Fiction. I couldn't get into any of it. Overall, I'd say I'd give it a C or C minus. About what I'd give the "Best of" anthologies containing predominantly white authors over the last 20 years. May be subject to change, but I doubt it. | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 7887 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
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