Every year I anxiously look forward to the arrival of the newest addition to my favorite book series, and every year my patience is rewarded and my appetite for a wonderful collection of short stories is entirely satisfied... that is until this 1999 edition of The Best American Short Stories. The compilation of short stories selected by Amy Tan this year has sadly disappointed me. Furthermore, my disappointment is escalated when one must consider the fact that Amy Tan is among my favorite authors. The combination of my favorite book series and one of my favorite author would presumingly produce a definite great edition yet sometimes the surest things are the most unforeseen.

The Best American Short Stories has always been a reliable and constant supplier of great contemporary work and uniquely distinctive tales. Stories that are far from typical but pleasantly uncanny and sometimes pleasingly bizarre. Stories that do not have a simple introduction, climax, and then resolution but stories that create their own course. Stories that you find yourself still thinking about days later in the shower, still trying to understand what exactly you comprehended. Yet instead what I found was a pretty traditional and conventional assortment of stories. I am not saying that these stories are particularly bad stories because they are not, it is just the straightforward fact that they are not as daring or come near to being as refreshing as their predecessors. I found many of her selections boringly light even when dealing with subject matters that are all but light. They tell their story and that is all. Everything felt so laid out and revealed that there was no room for analyzing or dissecting. Many of the stories were exactly as what appeared and nothing else, nothing left underneath to discover. They reminded me of the stories the entire class would read as one in the eighth grade and everyone would reach the same obvious conclusion of what the moral and purpose of the story was as the teacher nods her head to provide assurance.

There is still a couple of decent stories in this entire book (such as Pam Huston's The Best Girlfriend You Never Had) that renders the two stars given but in no way is that an endorsement to spend your money on two short stories. Instead, I recommend you simply visit you nearest bookstore, lean against a bookshelf and spend 15 minutes reading those two stories. Once you are done, place that book back on the self because that is where it belongs. I never thought I would be saying that about a book from this series but hopefully this is the first and last time I will have to. And hopefully this is just the black sheep in this family of over-achievers.

P.S.
In the end, I simply realized that perhaps a great novel writer should stick to novels and not picking short stories.

Personally, I think Amy Tan is a fantastic author and I loved her introduction. However, I am probably in the minority in that I did not enjoy the Rick Bass story at all. It seemed to me that that story was attempting to shove the author's intentions of what the story was about down my throat. But hey, that's just my opinion. I loved "The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars" and "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter", but didn't think such stories as "Kansas" should have been included. It's not such a bad collection and it's interesting to read the vast array of short stories.

I am a big fan of the "Best American Short Stories" series, an annual collection compiled and published by the Houghton Mifflin Company because I can't get around to reading all those great stories in all those great magazines flooding the market. I've been behind for so long, I was glad when I recently discovered a collection entitled "Best American Short Stories of the Century" edited by John Updike -- a sort of best of the best.

Some years, I have found the annual anthology more appealing, and some years less so. "The Best American Short Stories, 1999" edited by Amy Tan is very entertaining and more memorable than the collections of the past few years. My acid test is this -- can I remember today the gist of a story I read last month? In other words, did it leave a lasting impression? Tan's selections are holding up pretty well. I won't soon forget 'The Hermit's Story', the first entry in her book. I discovered something very remarkable when I read it, but I can't share it because I don't want to ruin the story for you.

These anthologies reflect the taste of the guest editor, as well as the skill of the chosen writers, but why not? Katrina Kenison, the Series Editor, says there's a surfeit of great material, so why shouldn't the guest editor reflect her outlook with her selection.

I think Tan's stories show she is very interested in the 'minority' viewpoint. You might imagine this occurs because Amy Tan is a Chinese descent American, and maybe it does. However, when I use the term minority I mean interestingly idiosyncratic.

Odd and unusual people populate these stories, and odd things happen to them. Of course, if they didn't have unusual experiences we might not find the energy to finish the page. But oddity alone is not enought to sustain the reader. One has to experience a connection with the character. I came to care what happened to most of these oddballs.

Visualize Pam Houston's character, a young woman who says, " When I was four years old and with my parents in Palm Beach, Florida, I pulled a seven-hundred-pound cement urn off its pedestal and onto my legs crushing both femurs." Or, consider this excerpt from Melissa Hardy's tale, "'Once,' Mrs Flowers told George, 'she ate a whole pile of socks I was fixing to darn. Another time she ate a Bible'." I feel frustration, sorrow, and/or amusement when I read these words. The stories grip, they entertain, they amuse. The are some of America's best short stories.