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Junot Díaz
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The Best American Short Stories 2016 (The Best American Series) Kindle Edition

by Junot Díaz (Author, Editor), Heidi Pitlor (Editor) Format: Kindle Edition
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“This terrific and surprising collection of tales by a diverse group of writers lives up to Diaz’s ‘rah-rah’ (his term) rallying cry for the form.” —USA Today

“If the novel is our culture’s favored literary form, upon which we heap all our desiccated literary laurels, if the novel is, say our Jaime Lannister, then the short story is our very own Tyrion: the disdained little brother, the perennial underdog. But what an underdog,” writes Junot Diaz in his introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2016.

From a Nigerian boy’s friendship with his family’s former houseboy to a sweatshop girl’s experience as a sister wife, from love and murder on the frontier to a meltdown in the academe, these stories, for Diaz, have the economy and power to “break hearts bones vanities and cages.”

“The literary ‘Oscars’ features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories.” —Shelf Awareness

“Its strongest installment yet . . . Díaz’s compilation is the most diverse and inclusive entry to date of any of the major annual story collections—reason enough to get it in the classroom, and a good vehicle for readers to see what’s up in neighborhoods they may not be familiar with. Essential for every student of the short story form.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This year’s collection brings together fine stories by famous fiction writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Karen Russell . . . [while] a great deal of the magic is generated by the appearance of less familiar names.” —The National Book Review
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  1. Part of series
    The Best American Short Stories
  2. Print length
    339 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Mariner Books
  6. Publication date
    October 4, 2016
  7. File size
    4143 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
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  10. Enhanced typesetting
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  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This terrific and surprising collection of tales by a diverse group of writers lives up to Diaz’s “rah-rah” (his term) rallying cry for the form... Count on them to transport you." —USA Today

"Its strongest installment yet... Díaz’s compilation is the most diverse and inclusive entry to date of any of the major annual story collections... Essential for every student of the short story form." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"This year’s collection brings together fine stories by famous fiction writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Karen Russell... [while] a great deal of the magic is generated by the appearance of less familiar names... Each of these outstanding stories is, as Diaz observes, a chance to listen 'to some other lone voice struggling to be heard against the great silence.'” —The National Book Review

From the Inside Flap

If the novel is our culture s favored literary form, upon which we heap all our desiccated literary laurels, if the novel is, say our Jaime Lannister, then the short story is our very own Tyrion: the disdained little brother, the perennial underdog. But what an underdog, writes Junot Díaz in his introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2016.

From a Nigerian boy s friendship with his family s former houseboy to a sweatshop girl s experience as a sister wife, from love and murder on the frontier to a meltdown in the academe, these stories, for Díaz, have the economy and power to break hearts bones vanities and cages.

Ten years into her role as series editor, Heidi Pitlor confides, A great pleasure of my job is the rush that comes with discovery...I m reading a new story and not checking how long it is or what time I have to pick up the kids. I m reading and feeling and thinking, and, if I m lucky, laughing too. I m not working at all. A great story has that power: it removes you from your life. It lifts you away from a while. Junot Díaz and I found much to discover this year.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01912QC5Y
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books; 2016th edition (October 4, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 4, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4143 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 339 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0544582756
  • Customer Reviews:

About the author

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Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz

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Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
259 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the stories excellent, well-written, and unique. They also describe the content as tight, muscular, soaring, and unforgettable. However, some customers feel the compilation is the worst in the series.

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StoriesWriting styleContentCompilation
17 customers mention "Stories"12 positive5 negative

Customers find the stories in the book excellent, entertaining, and a great gift for any lover of stories.

"...Diaz has done, with a ton of work from the series editor, is select great short stories from people with backgrounds and perspectives that are not..." Read more

"...Apollo is a touching, honest story and the masterful, nostalgic way Adiche tells it demonstrates her skill yet again...." Read more

"...A few too many offbeat diverse stories outside my tastes...." Read more

"...A great gift for any lover of stories." Read more

8 customers mention "Writing style"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well-written, melancholy, and staid. They also say it has a unique style.

"...Diaz's own writing is tight, muscular, soaring and unapologetic. He and series editor Heidi Pitlor have chosen stories with the same daring grace...." Read more

"...This is extremely well curated, and the writing is gorgeous...." Read more

"...I had a hard time understanding the point of some of them. Some of the writers were good but to read one after another in one book was too much...." Read more

"Most of these are really well written but man are they depressing! You don't have to be sad or super deep to have a great story...." Read more

5 customers mention "Content"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the content unapologetic, thought-provoking, and unforgettable. They also appreciate the phenomenal intro by Jutta Diaz.

"...Diaz's own writing is tight, muscular, soaring and unapologetic. He and series editor Heidi Pitlor have chosen stories with the same daring grace...." Read more

"Junit Diaz's intro is phenomenal! Almost worth it just for that! The stories that follow, however, are as good as promised...." Read more

"...Each has it's own quirks and approach. Thought provoking." Read more

"Excellent stories and very interesting introduction" Read more

6 customers mention "Compilation"0 positive6 negative

Customers find the compilation to be the worst in the series, weak, and a waste of money and time.

"Sorry. Worst compilation in the series ever. I have been reading Best American Short Stories for 25-30 years or more...." Read more

"The stories in this collection were uneven in their quality. Quite a few did not capture my interest or excite me with the word smithing...." Read more

"...stories in this volume, with a couple of exceptions, are the weakest I have read. (The Louise Erdrich story is outstanding!)" Read more

"...I didn't like many of the stories at all - just not that good...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

R Talbott
5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just Good Writing, Different Writing.
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2017
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OK, BEST short stories is pretty subjective. There is a lot of fabulous writing out there. What Diaz has done, with a ton of work from the series editor, is select great short stories from people with backgrounds and perspectives that are not usually anthologized. If you want to read about white suburbanites, by a collection by John Cheever.
I've read several of these collections. Was this better? No, they all contain stories that will take your breath away. This one contains stories about people and places I knew nothing about. It's special.
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Sarah B
4.0 out of 5 stars Strong collection, review of each story
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2016
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Junot Diaz, author of Drown and the pulitzer prize-winning The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is one of my favorite authors, and a champion of the short form, so I got my hands on this book as soon as I could. Diaz's own writing is tight, muscular, soaring and unapologetic. He and series editor Heidi Pitlor have chosen stories with the same daring grace. I particularly love the international perspective in 2016's batch of stories.

The book opens with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's story about the deep and painful history between a middle class Nigerian boy and his parents' house servant. Adichie is the author of Americanah, and one of the major themes in her stories is the aching tug between what your family and community expects of you, and what you expect of yourself. Apollo is a touching, honest story and the masterful, nostalgic way Adiche tells it demonstrates her skill yet again.

Ravalushan by Mohammed Naseehu Ali, originally published in Bomb blows my mind. 5 stars. It's the story of what happens to a group of neighbors during the little known coup d'etat in Ghana in 1981. Visercal and gutting.

Garments by Tahmima Anam, originally published in Freeman's. 5 stars. Ostenibly about garment workers in Dhaka who implement a scheme to marry the same man for the social stability a married status will provide them, the story is about friendship between three women whose lives are constantly tenuous and fraught.

Wonders of the Shore by Andrea Barrett, originally published in Tin House, 4 stars-- is the history of victorian naturalists and best friends who grow apart during their seaside vacation as one of them comes into her own in the local intelligentsia, while the other has a doomed fling with a painter. The prose is melancholy and staid, it reads like a lovely watercolor painting.

The Bears by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, originally published in Glimmer Train--3 stars A woman takes a vacation in the country after a miscarriage. After the first three stories, which were terrible and beautiful explosions, The Bears' slow plot and staid pastoral setting left me wanting more. It is a very reflective piece, and will perhaps appeal to fans of traditional literary fiction.

The Great Silence by Ted Chiang --originally published in flux, and then in Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. 5 stars I first read this piece in F&SF, and it brought tears to my eyes. It did again. This is one of the best stories of our age, not just of 2016. Through the perspective of a parrot, it shows the incredibly sad, destructive human instinct to reach outward into our solar system, seeking connection, even as we ignore the plethora of intelligent life on our own planet, and destroy it. The parrot who speaks in this piece is not angry, which is what gets to me most--his last line, as he anticipates his species' extinction, is "You be good. I love you."

The Letecian Age by Yalitza Ferrerras, originally published in the Colorado Review. 5 stars. Heart-crumbling unlikely love story between an astrophysicist and a geologist, narrated in terms of geologic events. Despite my terribly boring description, this has more heart and more life than most of the love stories I've ever read.

For the Love of God, for the God of Love by Lauren Groff, originally published in American Short Fiction. 4 stars A beautifully written story with a unique style. Two husband/wife pairs of old friends await the arrival of the babysitter. This is one of those stories I find hard to describe--in terms of plot, it's about gradual discoveries the characters make about themselves, but it's also about life and death and the world. Just read it.

The Suitcase by Maron Hadero, originally published in Missouri Review. 4 stars. When Saba is preparing to return home from her visit to Addis Ababa, her relatives argue over what she should bring back with her, which gifts for their relatives deserve room in the suitcase. Such a clever way to show the whole lives of generations, and the incredible difference between their lives and Saba's.

Treasure State by Smith Henderson, originally published in Tin House. 3 stars. A pair of brothers decide to strike out on their own when their abusive father vows to return to the house upon his imminent prison release date.

Pat + Sam by Lisa Ko, originally published in Copper Nickel 4 stars. Pat and Sam are the married couple in Ko's novel, and this is the story of how they met. It traces the first exciting flushes of love, to the fear of alienation in a very honest, empathetic way.

Cold Little Bird by Ben Marcus, originally published in the New Yorker. 3 stars. What do you do when your ten-year-old son decides he no longer wants your affection?

The Politics of the Quotidian by Caille Millner, originally published in Zyzzyva 4 stars - Things are not going well for the philosophy grad student at the heart of this story. A woman of color, she is constantly made to feel as if she doesn't belong in the field, and her baffling encounters with her students, her peers, and the administrative staff illustrate her decision to leave.

Bridge by Daniel J. O'Malley, originally published in the Alaska Quarterly Review. 3 stars A little boy thinks he witnesses an old couple jump together off of a bridge behind his house, but as he plumbs his memory, the boundary between fact and fantasy blurs.

The Prospectors by Karen Russell, originally published in the New Yorkers - 5 stars. Russell is one of my favorite authors, and she's done it again in this story about two best friends during the New Deal era of public works. They accidentally end up in a ski lodge full of ghosts who demand that the girls convince them they that are alive. As always, Russell's prose is magic, her descriptions otherworldly, and the overall effect is magisterial.

On This Side by Yuko Sakata, originally published in Iowa Review - 4 stars. When Toru's old schoolmate shows up out of the blue, transitioned now into being a woman, he lets her stay and must deal with his guilt for the way he treated her in school. The rich setting and deep, unspoken currents of emotion drive this story.

Gifted by Sharon Solwitz, originally published in the New England Review - 4 stars, about a woman whose son is diagnosed with cancer after a large tumor is found in his stomach. Solwitz began her larger project as her own son was dying of cancer. As in the best, most human stories, a tragic event is merely a chink through which we can enter into the complex relationship between family members, the reasons and history of affairs, the rivalry between sisters. A very human and unforgettable story.

Secret Stream by Hector Tobar, originally published in Zyzzyva - 3 stars. Nathan follows a mysterious woman as she maps the subterranean flow of one of the oldest natural rivers in L.A.

Williamsburg Bridge by John Edgard Wideman, originally published in Harper's. 2 stars I'm sure it's a good story. I just can't get into a story without much of a plot. These are the ruminations of a man before he jumps off of the Williamsburg bridge.
77 people found this helpful
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Corinne
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best American Short Stories collection series never fails to stun
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2017
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The Best American Short Stories collection series never fails to stun. It's an amazing collection every year. While the classics seem to remain the same, I can't say enough about picking up a book like this and connecting with modern authors. This is extremely well curated, and the writing is gorgeous. Short stories are an amazing thing to give for a gift, great for travel reads, a great book gift for anyone who doesn't read very much, etc. Would recommend for essentially anyone!
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Kenny A. Chaffin
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not the best recent edition of this series.
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2016
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I was a bit disappointed in this year's collection. A few too many offbeat diverse stories outside my tastes. Nothing bad here, but I felt the selection for inclusion focused more of divergent diverse authors/stories than on the Best Stories of the year. This year's O'Henry selections are more in line with what I feel were the Best Stories of the year. Nevertheless there were good/great stories here Including:
The Bears by Sarah Shun-Lien
Pat + Sam by Lisa Ko (my favorite of all the stories)
Bridge by Daniel J. O'Malley
The Prospectors by Karen Russell
On This Side by Yuko Sakata
and
Secret Stream by Hector Tobar

all great stories. Worth the read, but be aware many of these may lie outside your tastes as they did mine.

P.S. I was looking forward to reading Ben Marcus's story Cold Little Bird and while it was good I didn't feel it was a stand-out but fits into the strange/different perspective of the selections. On the other hand I was completely taken by a couple of collections edited by Ben Marcus - New American Stories and The Anchor Book of New American Stories they too have some different/quirky stories, but they are both wonderful and worth reading as well!
17 people found this helpful
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Caralyn
5.0 out of 5 stars Love it!
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2016
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Junit Diaz's intro is phenomenal! Almost worth it just for that! The stories that follow, however, are as good as promised. Far reaching and diverse set of authors deliver gut-wrenching, thought provoking, smile inducing stories.

A great gift for any lover of stories.
5 people found this helpful
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MEB
4.0 out of 5 stars American writers in our time
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2016
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There's good work throughout this collection, which seems to deliberately focus on work created by any person other than white males. I'm one, so maybe I'm tender, not the tough guy I thought I was. But okay maybe such a focus gives us a fair and responsible idea about the sources of good short story writing in these days of diversity when white males seem to have revolted, rejecting equality for all, and demanding a return of WHmales to the dominant status they [we] used to have. Onward.
4 people found this helpful
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BK
1.0 out of 5 stars Worst compilation in the series ever
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2017
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Sorry. Worst compilation in the series ever. I have been reading Best American Short Stories for 25-30 years or more. Many of the stories have nothing to do with America. I decided to write a review when I got to the ridiculous story of two young women who find themselves in a lodge on top of a mountain with 26 dead guys with glowing yellow eyes who don't know they're dead. Yeesh. What a waste of money and time with regards to this book.
3 people found this helpful
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PMB
2.0 out of 5 stars I love and miss Junot Diaz
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2022
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I was hoping for stories equal to the caliber of Diaz’ novels, but that would be expecting too much. I read each short story wondering why he chose it. I look forward to when he gets his own mojo back. Diaz’ style soothes my soul. I, victim of the Puerto Rican diaspora, was comforted by his New Jersey/Dominican Spanglish, his references to common traits and all things tropical, as if I found a long lost friend. I miss my life in the tropics and I miss revisiting that time in his stories. Cuidate Junot, hope to read you again soon. Un abrazo…
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Top reviews from other countries

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Alberto Moal
5.0 out of 5 stars Best American Short Stories
Reviewed in Mexico on November 17, 2018
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Es realmente un deleite que afamados escritores como Junot Diaz y Heidi Pitlor realizen el escrutinio de mas de 3,000 cuentos ( short stories ) y elijan las mejores a su juicio y las puedan compartir en un volumen. La gama de escritors es muy variado y los temas otro tanto.
Recomiendo altamente a quienes disfrutan del cuento, short story, esta recopilacion y las que año a año se publican.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on November 10, 2016
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good book
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sunshine
5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection
Reviewed in Germany on May 17, 2017
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Beautiful collection of shirt stories, all of them moving in their own way and taking place across time and space. I've found a lot of new writers to read, too.
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