Best American Short Stories 2013

"e;As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,"e; writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. "e;It's the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are."e; The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world. In "e;Miss Lora,"e; Junot Diaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the "e;Magic Man."e; Kirstin Valdez Quade's "e;Nemecia"e; depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham's "e;The Tunnel"e; is a tragic love story about a mother's declining health and her daughter's helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink's "e;Breatharians"e; unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents' estrangement. "e;Elizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one's writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content,"e; writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. "e;Here are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences."e;