The Best American Short Stories 2004 Book

Sherman Alexie - "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" - Much of this story explores the different dimensions of the protagonist's 'homelessness', a condition which simultaneously describes an alienation he feels from his Native American heritage and his literal lack of a home or family. The story kicks off as he spots a long-lost family heirloom in a pawn-shop and is given 24 hours to pull together an impossible $999 to purchase it. In describing his daylong 'odyssey' through the decrepit Native American community in Spokane, WA (and his own decrepitude), Alexie does a great job of interweaving his mythological premise with a stark, bittersweet realism, resulting in a very well-hewn story.

T.C. Boyle - "Tooth and Claw" - Delivered with an almost disarming level of clarity, Boyle delivers an urban romance story that somehow succeeds in pivoting itself on one of the most bizarre plot elements I have ever seen in a short story (which I will not spoil here). In the hands of a lesser writer, the thing I'm describing would have probably come off as being hamfistedly weird-for-the-sake-of-weird, but Boyle's descriptive prowess and believable characters combine to not only prevent that pratfall, but to treat readers with a refreshing and unique spin on some well-worn human themes.

Catherine Brady - "Written in Stone" - Now, stories like this one are precisely the reason I have faith in anthologies like this. If not for this enterprise, I would have certainly missed out on finding out about this excellent writer. The story itself is a fairly straightforward tale of one marriage's slow collapse, cross-hatched with a subtle narrative about the modern world's shifty balance between public and private existences. The writing in this story certainly includes its fair share of floating metaphors, but never bludgeons the reader over the head with them. I also thoroughly enjoyed the author's conscious goal of ambiguity, which I didn't realize right away. In my stubborn drive for meaning, I ended up frustratedly reading the story twice before checking the authors' notes section in the back and learning that the story was purposely open-ended. After slapping myself in the forehead a few times, I realized that the narrator's ambiguity is probably representative of a more salient realism than any clearer alternative. Putting this story aside, I was also thoroughly impressed by the author's writing prowess and will definitely make sure to look deeper into her body of work.

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum - "Accomplice" - This story really did not work for me in any way, which is a shame because the author writes very well and has a gift for clever metaphors. However, in a way, I think the cleverness might be part of why the story gained no traction. Very much like volume editor Lorrie Moore, Bynum seems a little too comfortable in some insular 'liberal arts creative-writing class' universe that has little to do with the real world. The result of this is that nothing of the autobiographical-sounding Ms. Hempel, her father, her students, or her students' parents comes out sounding believable. The back-to-school-night scene was especially hamfisted and I couldn't buy into the idea of a bunch of 7th graders becoming avid readers overnight. Where the story does better is in its descriptions of the main character's own back story and the relationship she had with her unusual (yet still somewhat idealized) father. Reading this through, all I took from this story was an idea that the writer could probably stand to leave the shelter of her own life because, as such, there's just not enough dirt under those fingernails yet.