For better or worse, we read fiction in the context of our ongoing lives. It is difficult to write about this moment—even this moment in the American short story—without mentioning the altered and frankly scary state of the world right now. Inevitably, much of the world will define 2020 as the year of the coronavirus pandemic. Most of us have been ordered to stay at home for an undefined amount of time to help “flatten the curve,” or slow the spread of the virus. The global count of those infected is approaching one million and is sure to multiply again and again by the time this book is printed. There are infinite horrors unfolding across the world right now, but there are glimmers of light too. The planet is getting a much-needed break from carbon emissions. Unimaginable acts of courage and generosity occur hourly now, especially on the part of doctors and nurses.
In her essay, “The World’s on Fire. Can We Still Talk About Books?” published in Electric Literature at the end of 2018, Rebecca Makkai makes a case for fostering creativity during the most difficult times. She writes, “Art is a radical act. Joy is a radical act. This is how we keep fighting. This is how we survive.” If nothing else, this has been a time to write—that is, if you are able to summon the focus. It’s a time to read, and try new authors and new genres. Musicians—everyone from Yo-Yo Ma to Wilco to Bruce Springsteen to even the Met Opera—have posted free and live performances online. The Guggenheim and Smithsonian museums are offering virtual tours. Many independent bookstores, the soul of the publishing industry, are providing tailored recommendations for readers, shipping books, and offering virtual events.
I offer a plug for the short story form, although if you are reading this, chances are I’m preaching to the choir. It can be hard (nearly impossible) to focus on reading fiction with one eye on a rapidly expanding global pandemic. The short story is the perfect length when you don’t have the bandwidth for a novel. Of course, it helps if the story is engrossing. To my mind the stories that follow are engrossing and sharp and thought-provoking and beautiful.
The best stories contain enough air to welcome in readers and their troubles, and offer up irresistible and universal questions that have no ready answers. Paradoxes, really, and questioned assumptions. Consider the following sentences. From Selena Anderson’s “Godmother Tea”: “Even my people who are still living don’t let me suffer the way I want to.” Or this, from Michael Byers’s “Sibling Rivalry”: “Your emotional centers were fooled by the physical imitation, and the AI was the real thing, and the growth was to human scales—so what was the difference, anyway?” Or this sentence, from “This Is Pleasure” by Mary Gaitskill: “The whole thing was vaguely sadistic—so vaguely that it was ridiculous; clearly no harm was done.”
Curtis Sittenfeld was such a joy to work with. She was wonderfully articulate about what she did and didn’t like in the 120 stories that I sent her. As she states in her introduction, I grade each story as a method of shorthand for when I return to the stacks at the end of my reading period and begin to reread. Most that I pull from magazines fall within the “B” range, and what keeps them from the top for me can be a variety of things: for example, a lack of confidence on the page. This can manifest in anything from an outsized plot for the characters at hand to labored language or pacing. A short story is most effective when it is released in one sure and steady breath.
These twenty stories make me hopeful for the state of American short fiction. Here are writers digging deep and reckoning with the implications of the #MeToo movement, a future of population control, childhood, adolescent bullying, long-term love, infidelity, mythology, and art. These stories span the globe, touching down in France, Maine, Yonkers, the American Midwest, Tennessee, Madagascar, Alaska, China, Venezuela, California. I was glad to see story writers play with genre: here are pieces that feature elements of magical realism, dystopic fiction, realism, historic fiction, mythology, comedy, and tragedy. This year I’m proud to feature a good number of newer writers, such as Selena Anderson, Sarah Thankam Mathews, Jane Pek, Alejandro Puyana, Anna Reeser, and William Pei Shih. I always aim to cull from a mix of known and lesser known literary journals as well. Magazines like Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Crazyhorse, Fourteen Hills, and Subtropics are represented in these pages.
I hope that by the time you read these words, the pandemic will have abated or passed, although it seems that it will cause economic, political, and social aftershocks for years to come. As I look back through these twenty stories, so many sentences take on new meaning right now. Elizabeth McCracken writes in “It’s Not You”: “I became kinder the way anybody does, because it costs less and is, nine times out of ten, more effective.” And T. C. Boyle’s “The Apartment” delivers this useful truth: “The world had been reduced. But it was there still, solid, tangible, as real as the fur of the cat.” May these stories draw you in, move you, and provide you comfort in the face of whatever you may be experiencing right now.
The stories chosen for this anthology were originally published between January 2019 and January 2020. The qualifications for selection are (1) original publication in nationally distributed American or Canadian periodicals; (2) publication in English by writers who have made the United States or Canada their home; (3) original publication as short stories (excerpts of novels are not considered). A list of magazines consulted for this volume appears at the back of the book. Editors who wish their short fiction to be considered for next year’s edition should send their publications or hard copies of online publications to Heidi Pitlor, c/o The Best American Short Stories, 125 High Street, Boston, MA 02110, or files to thebestamericanshortstories@gmail.com as attachments.
Heidi Pitlor