- Published: 06/10/2016
- ISBN: 9781783781485
- 130x20mm
- 784 pages
New American Stories
Ben Marcus
The short story is a barometer for the state and shape of literature. New American Stories presents the boldest, most innovative and most resonant fiction coming out of the American literary scene.
Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet and Leaving the Sea, has here curated an anthology that gives the lay of the literary land. From established masters of the form like Don DeLillo and Lydia Davis to neoteric trailblazers such as Rebecca Curtis and Rachel B. Glaser, this collection sees Marcus trying to ‘prove that the distinctions we erect between styles and approaches to fiction can be essentially meaningless’. The result is a must-read, must-own volume for readers of literary fiction.
£12.99
A landmark collection... It's a book to wrestle with as well as enjoy; one that forces you to assess and reassess your own sense of what makes a story any good - even of what makes a story a story. At once absolutely contemporary and timeless
James Lasdun, Guardian
A generous and beautifully designed brick of an anthology... [With writing that is] audaci[ous] and exuberant... it's a well-weighted collection confidently establishing a centre of gravity for American fiction
Jonathan Gibbs, Independent
A snapshot of the past decade from across the pond
Max Liu, Books of the Year, Independent
From the Same Author
Ben Marcus on Granta.com
Fiction | Granta 133
George and Elizabeth
Ben Marcus
‘She could see, or was starting to, that someone out there was seeing him, watching him.’
In Conversation | Granta 133
George Saunders and Ben Marcus In Conversation
George Saunders & Ben Marcus
‘One purpose of art is to get us to wake up, recalibrate our emotional life, get ourselves into proper relation to reality.’
Fiction | Granta 122
The Loyalty Protocol
Ben Marcus
‘The tally, indeed, on that particular activity, in that particular location – or, in fact, on any couch ever – was, indeed, zero.’