The American Story: Short Stories from the Rea Award - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0880014350 ISBN 13: 9780880014359

Publisher: The Ecco Press, 1996

Synopsis

Established by the Dungannon Foundation in 1986 to honor living American writers who have made a significant contribution to the short story form, the annual Rea Award for the Short Story has become one of America's most prestigious literary prizes. Each year writers and editors, chosen as jurors by Michael Rea, nominate writers of short fiction to be honored by the award. In The American Story, Rea has turned again to acclaimed jurors such as Joy Williams and Stanley Elkin and asked them to select the best stories by the illustrious winners - Cynthia Ozick, Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, Tobias Wolff, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Bowles, Eudora Welty and Grace Paley - along with the best stories by prominent writers who have been nominated for the award - including Ann Beattie, Harold Brodkey, Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus, Richard Ford, James Salter, and John Updike. All told, this collection brings together the finest work by twenty-one of our foremost practitioners of contemporary short fiction.

About this title

From Library Journal

Here's a treat for spring: outstanding American fiction published during the last four decades, gathered together by seven leading writers, who each chose three winners from the nominees for the Rea Award, a literary prize established in 1986. Selections include John Updike's coming-of-age story, "The Happiest I've Been" (selected by Joyce Carol Oates), and "The Shawl," Cynthia Ozick's mesmerizing Holocaust fantasy (selected by Shannon Ravenel). Tobias Wolfe's choices include "A Vintage Thunderbird" by Ann Beattie, which details love and heartache in New York City, and Beattie herself selected Charles Baxter's "Snow," Eudora Welty's "No Place for You, My Love," and Richard Bausch's "Consolation," all of which treat the mysteries of human connections from very different perspectives. The remaining narratives range from Joy Williams's child's-eye view of family disintegration, "Escapes" (selected by Stanley Elkin), to Donald Barthelme's playful "The Balloon" (selected by Ozick). A wide-ranging reading experience; recommended for any library with user interest in first-class short fiction.
Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Ecco Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0880014350
• ISBN 13: 9780880014359
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 306
• Editor: Michael M. Rea