Lust, Violence, Sin, Magic: Sixty Years of Esquire Fiction

Representing sixty years of outstanding short fiction, this anthology of stories from the pages of Esquire features the works of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Cheever, Roth, O'Connor, Carver, Updike, Styron, Godwin, and other notable writers.

Easily one of the best short fiction collections of this or any other year. All the selections here have appeared in Esquire and are topped off by Ernest Hemingway's masterly portrait of a dying man on safari, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," which Papa submitted to the magazine because he hadn't prepared the agreed-upon nonfiction piece. The selections run the gamut from familiar writers, such as Irwin Shaw and F. Scott Fitgerald, to more obscure authors, such as Barry Targan, whose hilariously triumphant fable, "Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto," is reprinted here. Other highlights include Leslie A. Fiedler's twisted commentary on the literati, "Nude Croquet"; Stanley Elkin's scarifying portrait of an angry man, "I Look Out for Ed Wolfe"; Jayne Anne Phillips' moving tale of a sister's love, "Bess"; gritty yarns of army life in Vietnam and elsewhere from Norman Mailer, Tobias Wolff, and Tim O'Brien; and John Updike's witty take on the power of suggestion, "The Rumor." There are several other pieces here just as compelling, and readers will choose their personal favorites, but overall, this collection is a great celebration of one of our purest art forms--telling a good story. Joe Collins