Finished!!! – The Best American Stories 1985

The Best American Stories 1985

Start date – Sept 10 2010

Finish date – March 4 2011

So, in closing, here is the breakdown for BASS 1985

It took -

5 months 22 days

or

25 weeks

or

175 days

or

125 week days

Which works out to:

One story every – 8.75 days

Gender profile of the anthology - 10 men and 10 women. (hummm – suspicious)

Stories from representing certain magazines more than once. – The Missouri Review – 2, The Paris Review – 2, Atlantic Monthly – 3, The Virginia Quarterly Review – 2, Esquire - 2.

Wow, almost 6 months to complete this anthology. Well, I suppose that “life” had a little bit to do with this. I will forever associate this volume of the series with the birth of my son. Even with this wonderful association, this volume was a hard read. I was so distracted by everything, and there really weren’t stories to pull me through.

There were standouts –

“The Sudden Trees”, “You’ve come a Long Way Mickey Mouse”, “Fellow Creatures” and “Angela”.

I couldn’t synch up my reading with my drive to write about a particular story. I finished several other novels as I struggled through this volume – most notably, Resurrection by Tolstoy.

Now that I’ve entered into a new phase of my life…a new chapter…a new segment, I’m ready to attack the next volume with vigor.

Bring on 1986...PLEASE!