Offering significantly more comprehensive and inclusive coverage than similar anthologies, this excellent and
varied collection features seventy-nine of the best American short stories written between 1945 and the present.
Taken together, these stories document the ever-changing reality of American life since World War II--who we are,
where we have been, and where we might be going. Striving to make this anthology representative of all the literary
voices of the period, editor John G. Parks includes work from such acclaimed authors as Raymond Carver, John Cheever,
and Flannery O'Connor alongside stories from writers who are no longer frequently anthologized, including John
Gardner, James Alan McPherson, Leonard Michaels, Wright Morris, J. F. Powers, and James Purdy. Key African-American
and new immigrant writers including James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Ernest J. Gaines, Jamaica Kincaid, Bharati Mukherjee,
and Alice Walker are also represented, along with such important Asian-American and Latino writers as Frank Chin,
Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Hisaye Yamamoto. The volume includes
a brief biography for each featured author and an introduction that traces developments in the short story form
in the United States. Providing a truly multifaceted look into the social, intellectual, and spiritual life of
the period, American Short Stories Since 1945 is an exceptional text for courses in the short story, American literature,
and creative writing.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. 1945-1960: The Strains of Accommodation and Consensus
Shirley Jackson (1919-1965)
"The Lottery"
Eudora Welty (1909- )
"Why I Live at the P.O."
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)
"The Spinoza of Market Street"
Tillie Olsen (1913- )
"I Stand Here Ironing"
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
"Battle Royal"
Grace Paley (1922- )
"An Interest in Life"
J.F. Powers (1917-1999)
"Prince of Darkness"
James Purdy (1923- )
"Don't Call Me by My Right Name"
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)
"The Jewbird"
Peter Taylor (1917-1994)
"The Old Forest"
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
"Revelation"
Wright Morris (1910-1998)
"The Ram in the Thicket"
John Cheever (1912-1982)
"The Country Husband"
"The Housebreaker of Shady Hill"
Philip Roth (1933- )
"Defender of the Faith"
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
"Sonny's Blues"
Hisaye Yamamoto (1921- )
"Seventeen Syllables"
2. 1960s and 1970s: Breakdowns and Breakthroughs
Saul Bellow (1915- )
"Looking for Mr. Green"
William H. Gass (1924- )
"In the Heart of the Heart of the Country"
Ernest J. Gaines (1933- )
"The Sky Is Gray"
Robert Coover (1932- )
"The Babysitter"
John Barth (1930- )
"Night-Sea Journey"
Donald Barthelme (1931-1989)
"Views of My Father Weeping"
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929- )
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
Cynthia Ozick (1928- )
"The Shawl"
John Gardner (1933-1982)
"Come on Back"
Joyce Carol Oates (1938- )
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995)
"The Lesson"
Leonard Michaels (1933- )
"I Would Have Saved Them If I Could"
Alice Walker (1944- )
"To Hell With Dying"
John Updike (1932- )
"Separating"
James Alan McPherson (1943- )
"Of Cabbages and Kings"
Jamaica Kincaid (1949- )
"Girl"
Max Apple (1941- )
"The Oranging of America"
Barry Hannah (1942- )
"Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet"
Jayne Anne Phillips (1952- )
"Souvenir"
Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- )
"Storyteller"
Alice Adams (1926- )
"Roses, Rhododendron"
3. 1980s and 1990s: Centers and Margins
Andre Dubus (1936-1999)
"A Father's Story"
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer (1941- )
"The Priest Next Door"
Ann Beattie (1947- )
"Janus"
Mary Robison (1949- )
"Coach"
Tobias Wolff (1945- )
"Hunters in the Snow"
Bobbie Ann Mason (1940- )
"A New-Wave Format"
Blanche McCrary Boyd (1945- )
"The Redneck Way of Knowledge"
Laurie Colwin (1944-1992)
"Another Marvelous Thing"
T.C. Boyle (1948- )
"Greasy Lake"
Charles Johnson (1948- )
"Exchange Value"
Susan Sontag (1933- )
"The Way We Live Now"
Garrison Keillor (1942- )
"The Tip-Top Club"
Tim O'Brien (1946- )
"The Things They Carried"
Joy Williams (1944- )
"Health"
Maxine Hong Kingston (1940- )
"On Mortality"
Bharati Mukherjee (1940- )
"The Management of Grief"
Charles Baxter (1947- )
"Gryphon"
Amy Tan (1952- )
"Rules of the Game"
Richard Ford (1944- )
"Rock Springs"
Lorrie Moore (1957- )
"People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk"
Louise Erdrich (1954- )
"Saint Marie (1934)"
Frank Chin (1940- )
"The Only Real Day"
Francine Prose (1947- )
"Everyday Disorders"
Raymond Carver (1938-1988)
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love"
"Cathedral"
Amy Hempel (1951- )
"In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried"
Ron Hansen (1947- )
"Wickedness"
Stephanie Vaughn (1943- )
"Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog"
Helena Maria Viramontes (1954- )
"The Cariboo Cafe"
Sandra Cisneros (1954- )
"One Holy Night"
Robert Olen Butler (1944- )
"Relic"
Robert Stone (1937- )
"Helping"
Pam Houston (1962- )
"How to Talk to a Hunter"
Don DeLillo (1936- )
"Videotape"
Thom Jones (1945- )
"Cold Snap"
Sherman Alexie (1966- )
"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona"
Ron Carlson (1947- )
"Oxygen"
Andrea Barrett (1965- )
"The Littoral Zone"
Mary Gaitskill (1954- )
"The Girl on the Plane"
David Leavitt (1961- )
"A Place I've Never Been"
