Intermission

I'm pretty sure the algorithms synced across a few platforms to bring In the Land of Men to my attention - and just like that, I downloaded it last night, and I'm primed to start reading tonight. 

I'm excited about this book mainly because I think it'll offer some additional insight to the lit scene of the 90's. We've just breached the 90s in this BASS exploration project and BASS 1992 is the first time we encounter David Foster Wallace - a major part of Miller's book. Additionally, according to my spreadsheet, during her time at Esquire, Miller edited four authors that landed in The Best American Short Stories. 

I'll be sure to circle back around in a few days with my thoughts. 

The Best American Short Stories 1992 - Introduction

Start the clock. 

I'm notorious for taking years to read these anthologies. We are 15 books in to this series starting with 1978 back in 2008. 

Back when I started this project, I worked at a newspaper in Virginia. Two weeks ago, I voluntarily left the newspaper (my second home for 19 years). It was a difficult decision, but a move that was necessary. I'm sure in the years and posts to come, I will dive deeper into everything surrounding my departure. These stories have a way of prying out details over time - this is the purpose of this project - it's a bit of therapy. 

I've written several times about the various stages of my life and here we are at another. It'll be very interesting to see what develops.

So, here we are, finally reading the BASS 1992. I loved the 90s and the editor of this volume, in his introduction, touches on one of the reasons why I found that decade so special.

Robert Stone made his first appearance in The Best American Series back in 1998 which I read in 2012. I found his introduction to this volume a little rough - of course perhaps I am out of practice (reading that is). The following passage did catch me though.

"In their variety, these stories reflect what is probably the most significant development in late-twentieth-century American fiction, the renewal and revitalization of the realist mode, which has been taken up by a new generation of writers. This represents less a "triumph" of realism than the obviation of old arguments about the relationship between life and language. As of 1992, American writers seem ready to accept traditional forms without self-consciousness in dealing with the complexity of the world around them."

This final paragraph from the introduction nails it perfectly for me. It's why I found love for the short story in the early 90s.

During my time at Norwich University, I worked as a work study student in the library. I was assigned to the periodicals department where I received incoming magazines and journals. I cataloged the new arrivals and at times, when needed, I assisted in the weeding of older journals from the shelves. Because Norwich was associated with Vermont College at this time, we received copies of important literary journals. When I found a few minutes of down-time between my duties, I would flip through these journals, journals with odd sounding names, Black Warrior Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Missouri Review, Paris Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review just to name a few. I can't readily recall what story or what journal pulled me in, but I was hooked. It was in these journals that the stories I am now reading in the BASS are resurfacing. No doubt, I will run across one or several that seem all too familiar...the years softening my recollection of having actually reading it so many years ago.

Now, the publications and number of stories featured in BASS 1992.

Ploughshares - 1

Story - 3

New England Review - 1

The Atlantic Monthly - 1

Harper's Magazine - 1

The Southern Review - 1

Fiction International - 1

Black Warrior Review - 1

American Short Fiction - 1

The New Yorker - 9

So, as you can see, and it shouldn't come as a  surprise, stories from The New Yorker heavily outweigh the others.

Stone has this to say about the stories from that publication.

"The large number of New Yorker inclusions I think results from the fact that while The New Yorker is still able to attract first-rate submissions, the days are past when there was such a thing as a "New Yorker story." 

Well, lets see about that. I'm very excited to start this new journey - both in my life and with this volume. 

The 90s were my decade - I have faith that these stories will hold up.

Onward!

A Conclusion

I can’t count the number of times I’ve started this entry in my head. I finished the last story in this edition quite some time ago so why deviate from my normal behavior of waiting to post an entry?

I made the introductory post for this edition back on February 27, 2017. 

That was 2 years, 11 months and 3 days ago…or 1067 days.

This project suffered neglect due to my inability to remain focused on it and due to the many other wonderful titles, that surfaced and caught my attention. 

These occasional entries are good though to shame me into posting more. 

Maybe. 

So, what can I say about The Best American Short Stories 1991? 

An overview of this volume wouldn’t be fair. I have trouble recalling the good/bad/ugly of these stories. 

So – with that, let’s put this volume behind us. 

After all, I have started a new volume in life (more on that later) so it is only appropriate that I do with this project.

A Sandstone Farmhouse – John Updike

Well hello there Mr. Updike!

Our society has changed quite a bit since we first met back in January 2010.

You were in 1980, and your story was featured in Playboy and I was reading it across time 30 years later.

For many, then and now, your work appearing in that publication would be a natural fit. There were quite a few opinions of your writing back in 1980  and into the 90s (plenty of hate) the early 2000s as well as in 2010 – and now, when you are discussed/studied, their opinions are colored by our societal shifts…as they should be. 

I loved your writing back in 2010, and now almost 10 years later, I still love your writing.

It was this anthology that brought me closer to you. I saw you develop and it allowed me to explore the critical discussion of your work. I learned so much.

And now, you are back in my life.

I rushed to this story, not only because it is the last one in this edition, and I’m so over this particular year, but it had been some time since we last had some time together.

I finished your story well over a month ago and I fell down the rabbit hole of researching you again.

That was a mistake.

I should have left well alone.

I climbed out of the hole, lessons learned, and here we are.

So, this story…

About three years ago, my sister and I cleaned out my mother’s house. We moved her into an apartment. It was the house that I moved into when I was 5 and my sister was 2.

We disturbed dust and pulled pictures off the walls that hadn’t moved in close to 40 years.

Curtains were pulled down and light shined in corners that were dark for a lifetime.

We did the cleaning in the summer and it was hot and sweaty. 

We piled boxes on the curb that were picked through by strangers. What they didn’t scavenge, the city trash collectors picked up with a giant claw truck.

We held an estate sale allowing strangers to tromp through the house and pay cents for what we and she spent good money on years before.

The house was too big for her and physically, she was too small for the house.

I thought a lot about that move and my mother while reading this story.

On occasion, I’ll drive past that house, my mother’s the one I was raised in and the memories come flooding back. 

Playing in the front yard, riding up and down the block on my bike, my skateboard. The early mornings - pushing my bike past the parked cars in the driveway so I could deliver the daily newspaper. 

Sitting on the front porch with friends. 

I look up at the attic window, my room, my refuge from age 13 to 18. 

The days I spent lying on my bed looking down at the street where I now sit in an idling car looking up at the empty windows.

So, Updike’s Sandstone Farmhouse took me back to my house, to those memories of EVERYTHING that happened there. 

Updike does that to me  - and I appreciate and love his writing for this.