Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2 | Granta

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Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2

Spring 2007

Granta selects the ‘Best of Young American Novelists’, including Gary Shteyngart, Nicole Krauss, Anthony Doerr and Yiyun Li.

£14.99

From this Issue

Essays & Memoir|Granta 97
Essays & Memoir|Granta 97

Best of Young American Novelists 2: Introduction

Ian Jack

Ian Jack introduces Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2.

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

The King is Always Above the People

Daniel Alarcón

‘It was the year I left my parents, a few useless friends, and a girl who liked to tell everyone we were married, and moved two hundred kilometres downstream to the capital.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Parakeets

Kevin Brockmeier

‘The birds studied the mute as though he were a puzzle.’

Fiction|Granta 97padlock
Fiction|Granta 97padlock

The Complaint

Judy Budnitz

‘The first few apartments Claude inspects have the air of people who haven't budged in years.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

That First Time

Christopher Coake

‘Everything, even the ground under his feet, felt impermanent.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Procreate, Generate

Anthony Doerr

‘Nothingness is the rule. Life is the exception.’

Fiction|Granta 97padlock
Fiction|Granta 97padlock

Room After Room

Jonathan Safran Foer

‘Her heart is kept in a room with a very expensive security system.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Where East Meets West

Nell Freudenberger

‘How can we presume to know what other people's experiences are like?’

Fiction|Granta 97padlock
Fiction|Granta 97padlock

Exile

Olga Grushin

‘For one instant, while all this seemed possible, he listened to the violent unfolding of his heart.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Passover in New Orleans

Dara Horn

‘The moon was bright and round, as it always is on Passover, like a coin resting on the moist black velvet of the spring night sky.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Hard Core

Gabe Hudson

‘My buddy Meat’s the one who showed me the true joy of handling the M203.’

Gabe Hudson in Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2.

Fiction|Granta 97padlock
Fiction|Granta 97padlock

Dance Cadaverous

Uzodinma Iweala

‘It just seemed like the right thing to want, the right thing to do.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

My Painter

Nicole Krauss

‘My painter caught me in a moment that is somehow rare and yet not uncharacteristic.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Valets

Rattawut Lapcharoensap

‘It’s a slow night again. The other valets are out back playing pétanque with the kitchen staff.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

House Fire

Yiyun Li

‘The six friends declared war against love outside marriage.’

Fiction|Granta 97padlock
Fiction|Granta 97padlock

O Tannenbaum

Maile Meloy

‘He would never put his wife and child in danger again.’

Fiction|Granta 97padlock
Fiction|Granta 97padlock

Buffalo Soldiers

ZZ Packer

‘No bullet, no recoil, no shot.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

The Answer

Jess Row

‘It's a Thursday afternoon in late August.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

The Barn at The End of Our Term

Karen Russell

‘Eleven of the stabled horses are, as far as Rutherford can ascertain, former presidents of the United States of America.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

Mother And Son

Akhil Sharma

‘I also tried holding my breath for a moment longer than necessary and asking God to give the unused breaths to Birju.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

From The Diaries of Lenny Abramov

Gary Shteyngart

‘Today, I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die.’

Fiction|Granta 97
Fiction|Granta 97

In The Tunnel

John Wray

‘It was a question of not thinking about what you were doing.’

The Online Edition

In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation|The Online Edition

Karen Russell | Interview

Karen Russell & Patrick Ryan

‘I think it’s impossible to draw a hard and fast line between reality and fantasy.’

In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation|The Online Edition

Three Questions for Nicole Krauss

Nicole Krauss & Saskia Vogel

‘It’s easy to make an argument for the importance of literature in general, but almost impossible to sustain any conviction about the specific value of one’s own work.’

In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation|The Online Edition

Gary Shteyngart | Interview

Gary Shteyngart & Emily Greenhouse

‘I can’t even afford to have thoughts on London, much less live or visit there.’

In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation|The Online Edition

Anthony Doerr | Interview

Anthony Doerr & Patrick Ryan

‘The natural world is full of records and erasures.’

In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation|The Online Edition

Jess Row | Interview

Jess Row & Ollie Brock

‘What I’m most drawn to in writing about this subject is the way in which very small, intimate acts of violence (not even necessarily physical violence) often serve as a microcosm or incubator for the massive, cataclysmic violence we see all around us in the world.’

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