Short Stories

Vivid and alive, these stories reveal whole lives -- characters caught between the past and the present, between different cultures, and between their intellects and emotions. Global in scope, classical in form, evocative of place, this rich collection marks an exciting and original debut.

From a master of modern American letters comes a collection of short fiction about people who, as E. L. Doctorow notes in his Preface, are somehow “distinct from their surroundings --- people in some sort of contest with the prevailing world.” 

Charlotte Anne Byers is one gloriously flawed human being --- a character in whom every reader will see herself reflected. The story of Charlotte's life --- from her stint in the youth chorus of her mother's opera company to her battles with addiction, doomed love, and the burdens of familial duty --- comes to us through Charlotte's most private thoughts, her most outrageous associations, her most wicked barbs, her most painful memories, her most honest revelations.

This is fiction so intimate, so immediate, so involving that reading it is like making a new friend.

The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders, too: those of race, law, sex and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress.

Exploring the way our choices and relationships are shaped by the menace and beauty of the natural world, Megan Mayhew Bergman’s powerful and heartwarming collection captures the surprising moments when the pull of our biology becomes evident, when love or fear collide with good sense, or when our attachment to an animal or wild place can’t be denied.

In “Housewifely Arts,” a single mother and her son drive hours to track down an African gray parrot that can mimic her deceased mother’s voice. A population-control activist faces the ultimate conflict between her loyalty to the environment and her maternal desire in “Yesterday’s Whales.” And in the title story, a lonely naturalist allows an attractive stranger to lead her and her aging father on a hunt for an elusive woodpecker.

As intelligent as they are moving, the stories in Birds of a Lesser Paradise are alive with emotion, wit, and insight into the impressive power that nature has over all of us. This extraordinary collection introduces a young writer of remarkable talent.

Joyce Carol Oates takes readers deep into dangerous territory, from a maximum-security prison to the inner landscapes of two beautiful and mysteriously doomed young women in 1940s Los Angeles: Elizabeth Short, otherwise known as the Black Dahlia, victim of a long-unsolved and particularly brutal murder, and her roommate Norma Jeane Baker, soon to become Marilyn Monroe.

Included in this collection of new and classic stories by Sherman Alexie are some of his most esteemed tales, including “What You Pawn I Will Redeem," “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” “The Toughest Indian in the World” and “War Dances.” His new stories are about donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines, the reservation, marriage, and all species of contemporary American warriors.