Each volume of The Best American Short Stories is a literary time capsule, a gathering of characters, settings, styles, voices, and conflicts more or less specific to their moment in history. The Best American Short Stories 2017 features some of the last stories written and published before November 8, 2016, and what must have been one of the most acrimonious and wearying presidential elections for Americans.
I have a theory that it’s more difficult to hide ourselves when writing fiction than nonfiction, even certain memoirs. So much is revealed in the poses that we choose to strike, the silences we allow, and the conflicts we dramatize. And if fiction tends to be more successful without forceful agendas, the genre does tend to offer at least a window onto an author’s aesthetics and emotionality, and often their values.
The stories in this volume—bold, intimate, enlightening, entertaining—reflect a country profoundly divided. In Mary Gordon’s “Ugly,” a New York City woman temporarily moves to the Midwest and reckons with her own calcified urban superiority. The faithful chafe against the faithless in Kevin Canty’s “God’s Work.” The young Asian woman in Sonya Larson’s “Gabe Dove” grapples with internalized racism when dating an Asian man for the first time. The public and the private spheres go head-to-head in Fiona Maazel’s “Let’s Go to the Videotape.” The wealthy grate against the support staff in Kyle McCarthy’s “Ancient Rome.” Misogyny brews beneath the surface of Eric Puchner’s “Last Day on Earth.” Acrimony between the genders appears often in these pages. After meeting a celebrity at a party, the narrator of Jess Walter’s “Famous Actor” says, “I disliked him from the moment I decided to sleep with him.” Amy Hempel explores the devastating echoes of a failed marriage in “The Chicane.” The fractured condition of our country is most overtly referenced in Curtis Sittenfeld’s story, in which a professor of gender and women’s studies and a Trump-supporting shuttle driver have an awkward and ill-fated one-night stand: “Again when they look at each other, she is close to puncturing the theatrics of her own anger . . . but she hasn’t yet selected the words that she’ll use to cause the puncture.”
Guest editor Meg Wolitzer and I spoke soon after the election, and we admitted to feeling daunted by the task before us. How did one even read short stories now? How could one read anything but the rapid-fire revelations that came in November, December, and January (and as of now, continue to come) about everything from fake news to the Russian involvement in our electoral process to the spike in hate crimes? And how was it possible to stay informed without becoming inundated and overwhelmed? After 9/11, series editor Katrina Kenison wrote, “All of [these stories] had been written well before September 11, and yet often I found it hard to believe that this could be the case; the truths they spoke seemed so timely, so necessary now.” Back in 1942, series editor Martha Foley wrote, “In its short stories, America can hear something being said that can be heard even above the crashing of bombs and the march of Panzer divisions. That is the fact that America is aware of human values as never before, posed as they are against a Nazi conception of a world dead to such values.” The difference now is the widespread availability of news—fake and real—due to the primacy of the Internet. I have friends and family who read no news and others who read just some. I must say that at the moment, I am working through a rampant news addiction. If you share this affliction, you know that it’s no good, that it stimulates anxiety and robs you of the ability to be mindful in your day-to-day life. The antidote to depletion is, of course, nourishment. This year, the best stories provide necessary sustenance.
Ms. Wolitzer and I went back and forth about these stories numerous times. The job felt different this year. In a time when truth has become a pawn in a dangerous game of partisanship and influence, honest and emotionally true writing felt especially important. We strove for a mix of content and style, a collection of stories that gave voice to something urgent and meaningful.
The Best American Short Stories 2017 celebrates all that is our country: crowded and lonely, funny and sad, fame-obsessed and fame-wary. Here are immigrants, a cabdriver, a person with a boyfriend and a girlfriend, a bartender, a racecar driver, sex workers, a human resources manager, a Ukrainian packaging specialist, a bridesmaid, a Cuban writer. Here are trapped naval officers, a contestant on America’s Funniest Home Videos, a gay man desperate to be a father.
I love these stories. I feel irrationally proud and protective of these characters, these Americans in their fragility and grace, their division and desire, all of them unaware of what is to come. I am eager to read next year’s stories and to meet their characters, and to encounter their strength and resilience and wisdom.
The stories chosen for this anthology were originally published between January 2016 and January 2017. 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 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 St., Boston, MA 02110.
Heidi Pitlor