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How to breathe underwater
by Julie Orringer
Review:
The nine stories in this amazing debut collection concern
adolescents who suddenly bump up against the variously
painful realities of a grown-up world. Julie Orringer has an
instinctive understanding of the way certain bright,
inquisitive children can suddenly get pulled under by fierce
currents of feeling � envy, shame, grief, hostility � with
which they don't yet have the resources to cope. Slowly,
sometimes agonisingly, they have to learn how to breathe
underwater. These stories are by no means heavy going.
Orringer's tone is jauntier than her sombre, even tragic
material would appear to allow; one feels borne along by a
kind of high-spirited dismay.
The
way Orringer mirrors the tension between the adult and
adolescent cliques is wonderfully adroit, and painfully
moving.
That goes for the whole book, which conjures the same
exhilaration I felt on reading Lorrie Moore's Self-Help and
Melissa Bank's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing. It
is a shame that Viking has cravenly decided to slap on a
cover which practically screams "chick-lit". Do they now
think that is the only way to sell fiction by young women?
These fine, intricate stories have earned, at the very
least, the courtesy of a serious presentation. |
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Silver Rose Anthology: Award-Winning Short Stories
2001
by Kevin Watson and Alexandra York
Description:
Here is a unique and uplifting experience for readers of fiction. SILVER
ROSE ANTHOLOGY: Award-Winning Short Stories 2001 contains twelve
award-winning stories from authors who offer us thoughtful images of men
and women at their best, stories about everyday people who tackle their
problems with reason and resolve. But smartly rising above and beyond
"happily ever after" tales, these are realistic ventures, subtly
affirming that happiness in life is, in fact, possible and that each of
us has the ability to make it so.
American Renaissance for the Twenty-first Century (ART), a nonprofit
arts foundation, has announced the winners of the Silver Rose Award for
Excellence in the Art of the Short Story. Stories selected to receive
this prestigious honor were chosen from over 1000 short stories
published during 2001 in large, well-known magazines and in small,
lesser-known journals and webzines. In all, twelve authors were chosen
by ART to receive the Silver Rose Award for Excellence in the Art of the
Short Story. These "one dozen silver roses" are now available in ART�s
inaugural publication of SILVER ROSE ANTHOLOGY: Award-Winning Short
Stories 2001, the first in an annual anthology series that will feature
short stories from twelve authors who have earned ART�s newest award.
ART is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts foundation with a stated mission to
"promote a rebirth of beauty and life-affirming values in all of the
fine arts." The Silver Rose is ART�s symbol of beauty, and the Silver
Rose Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story was created to
honor writers of exceptional short stories that, one way or another,
embody this mission.
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Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
by ZZ Packer
Review:
"An outstanding debut
story collection, Z.Z. Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere has
attracted as much book-world buzz as a triple espresso. Yet,
surprisingly, there are no gimmicks in these eight stories.
Their combination of tenderness, humor, and apt, unexpected
detail set them apart. In the title story (published in the New
Yorker's summer 2000 Debut Fiction issue), a Yale freshman is
sent to a psychotherapist who tries to get her � black, bright,
motherless, possibly lesbian � to stop "pretending," when she is
sure that "pretending" is what got her this far. "Speaking in
Tongues" describes the adventures of an Alabama church girl of
14 who takes a bus to Atlanta to try to find the mother who gave
her up. Looking around the Montgomery Greyhound station, she
wonders if it has changed much since the Reverend King's days.
She "tried to imagine where the 'Colored' and 'Whites Only'
signs would have hung, then realized she didn't have to. All
five blacks waited in one area, all three whites in another."
Packer's prose is wielded like a kitchen knife, so familiar to
her hand that she could use it with her eyes shut. This is a
debut not to miss."
Description:
With stories in The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and in The
Best American Short Stories, 2000, and as the winner of a
Whiting Writers' Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers'
Award, ZZ Packer has already achieved what most writers only
dream about-all prior to publication of her first book.
Now, in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, her impressive range and
talent are abundantly evident. Packer dazzles with her command
of language-surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns
and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of
characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. With
penetrating insight that belies her youth-she was only nineteen
years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published
story-Packer takes us to a Girl Scout camp, where a troupe of
black girls are confronted with a group of white girls, whose
defining feature turns out to be not their race but their
disabilities; to the Million Man March on Washington, where a
young man must decide where his allegiance to his father lies;
to Japan, where an international group of drifters find
themselves starving, unable to find work.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking debut-fresh, versatile,
and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and
unforgettable new American voice.
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Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona (The John Simmons Short Fiction Award)
by Ryan Harty
Book review:
The stark landscapes of the desert Southwest form the backdrop for
Harty's poignant and intelligent debut collection. Two of the
eight stories explore the complicated relationships between
brothers: a young football player feels the pull of opposing
loyalties when his brother, home from the Marines, kills a
rival's dog in "What Can I Tell You About My Brother"; in
"Crossroads," a Marine bound for Vietnam and his younger brother
go to a Led Zeppelin concert in a debauched outing that might be
one of their last, best times. Harty shows a keen interest in
characters who are down on their luck, as in "Between Tubac and
Tumacacori," in which a heroin addict tempts his former partner
to leave his girlfriend and begin dealing again, but suffers a
twinge of conscience. The longest story is also one of the most
affectingly unusual: in "Don't Call It Christmas," Will, a
low-level writing instructor in San Francisco, embarks on a
hesitantly tender affair with a tough homeless girl while his
mother lies comatose in an Arizona hospital; the girl's
gutterpunk boyfriend causes trouble, but when Will's mother
wakes, happiness seems briefly possible. "Why the Sky Turns Red
When the Sun Goes Down" explores the emotional side of a
technologically advanced future, as a couple agonizes over their
beloved robotic son, who has begun to experience mechanical
breakdowns. No one would call these stories uplifting, or
optimistic, but they are all fully realized and elegantly
told-and often quietly surprising. Hardy excels at creating a
three-dimensional desert suburbia populated by seeking, reaching
characters, for whom happiness is always just a bit out of
reach.
Well-intentioned but ultimately human, the characters in these
stories often fall short of achieving grace. But the possibility
of redemption, like the Sonoran Desert at the edge of Bring Me
Your Saddest Arizona�s suburban landscapes, is never far off.
Harty�s characters are as complicated as the people we know, and
his vision of life in the west is as hopeful as it is strikingly
real.
Book description:
The vast, unsettling landscape of the American Southwest is
as much a character in Ryan Harty�s debut collection, Bring Me
Your Saddest Arizona, as the men and women who inhabit its
award-winning stories. In eight vivid tales of real life in the
west, Harty reminds us that life�s greatest challenge may be to
find the fine balance between desire and obligation.
A high school football player must make a choice between family
and friends when his older brother commits an act of senseless
violence. A middle-aged man must fly to Las Vegas to settle his
dead sister�s estate, only to discover that he must first
confront his guilt over his sister�s death. A young teacher
tries to help a homeless girl, but, as their lives intertwine,
he begins to understand that his generosity is motivated by his
own relenting sense of loneliness.
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ADOLESCENTS
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Taste Berries for Teens 3: Inspirational Short Stories and
Encouragement on Life, Love and Friends
by Bettie Youngs and Jennifer Youngs
Book review:
Grade 9 Up � Like its predecessors, this
title consists mainly of stories by teens, and the quality
ranges from engaging to self-indulgent. The themes are
universal, yet some of the pieces are rambling, moralistic,
self-centered, or lacking in basic grammar and clarity. One
section deals with teens' reactions to September 11, 2001. The
last portion of the book, which includes trivia on science,
astrology, and other subjects, was designed to give teens
talking points; it is unnecessary. This volume will undoubtedly
draw fans of the "Chicken Soup" books (Health Communications),
but it is an optional purchase elsewhere.
Book Description
Bettie B. Youngs and Jennifer Leigh Youngs have worked with
hundreds of teens of various ages and backgrounds to get to the
heart of real-life teen issues. This latest offering reflects
what teens tell them is the staple of life-making, keeping and
coping with friends finding someone special then dealing with
makeups and breakups; and sorting through control issues with
their parents. More and more, teens are concerned about friends
facing a health crisis (such as AIDS or eating disorders),
having a serious alcohol or drug problem, and how to help their
parents with their problems. Taste Berries for Teens 3 addresses
these growing concerns through a combination of stories
expressing teens' thoughts and the compassionate wisdom of
Bettie and Jennifer Youngs. Taste Berries for Teens 3 lightens
things up with a new chapter chockful of little-known trivia
that teens will find fascinating and fun and wraps up with a
section called "Ask Dr. Youngs," where Bettie answers the most
common questions she gets from teens in the areas of
self-improvement, friendship, love and sex, grieving, rumors,
harassment and parents. Her responses reveal her love for teens
by providing real solutions and encouraging teens to talk to
their parents or important adults.
This collection of stories and advice is inspiring, honest and
compelling, and will support teens as they progress on their
life journeys. Taste Berries for Teens 3 is sure to be the next
big success in this extraordinary teen series. |
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ADOLESCENTS
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Top Teen Stories
By
Betsy Byars
Book Description:
Growing up is hard to do, as
contributors such as Judy Blume, Robert Cormier, and Paul Zindel
know. Full of humor and understanding, the stories and extracts
in this collection share the hopes, dreams, and secret fears of
both classic and contemporary young adult characters.
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Emporium: Stories
by Adam Johnson
Book description:
Garnering advance praise from the
likes of Ron Carlson, Mark Richard, and Jennifer Egan, Adam
Johnson's Emporium marks the debut of a startling new voice in
American fiction. Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler
raves, "Adam Johnson is the most exciting young writer I've ever
read. . . . He gives extraordinary fictions that are at once
universal and dazzlingly original."
The voices that inhabit Adam Johnson's debut collection are all
on intimate terms with loss. Their worlds are dyed by the indigo
of loneliness and the invisible ink of abandonment. Yearning for
connection, all of these characters seek meaning in landscapes
made uncertain by the voids where parents and lovers should be:
a father searches a darkened zoo for his troubled son; in a
condemned Kmart, a girl bares her bulletproof vest to the aim of
her boyfriend's pistol; a physicist pines for an astronaut
trapped on the moon. In other stories, a cancer victim controls
a satellite, a sniper trains his scope on the girl of his
dreams, and a young woman waits for an Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms agent to kick down the doors to her heart. Through
thrilling prose and fearless scenes, Johnson shows that
Christian power-lifters and depressed robots are no more surreal
than fathers who vanish or mothers who waste away.
Review:
A disturbing sense of paranoia drifts through the nine stories
in Emporium, Adam Johnson's stunning debut. But beneath the
uneasy surface of the freakishly memorable landscapes depicted
in this original collection lies the familiar trappings of
adolescence: strip malls and cul-de-sacs, stifling suburbs,
teenage crushes and rebellions, absent parents, and a
frightening, unpromising future.
In "Teen Sniper," a lonely 15-year-old LAPD marksman, whose only
friend is ROMS, the squad's bomb-detecting robot, can snuff out
a life in a heartbeat from 475 meters away yet can't connect
with the girl of his dreams standing right in front of his nose.
In this unsettling story, the sniper visualizes the impact
wounds of his victims--renegade employees of Silicon Valley
software companies--as beautiful floral imagery.
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