Forthcoming: New Stories From The South, Edited By Madison Smartt Bell

Interesting anthology form Algonquin out next Tuesday: New Stories from the South 2009, edited by Madison Smartt Bell.

From the publisher’s website:

In the twenty-fourth volume of this distinguished anthology, Madison Smartt Bell chooses twenty-one distinctive pieces of short fiction to tell the story of the South as it is now. This is a South that is still recognizable but no longer predictable. As he says, “to the traditional black and white recipe (ever a tricky and volatile mixture) have been added new shades and strains from Asia and Central and South America and just about everywhere else on the shrinking globe.” Just as Katrina brought out into the open all the voices of New Orleans, so the South is now many things, both a distinctive region and a place of rootlessness. It’s these contradictions that Madison Smartt Bell has captured in this provocative and moving collection of stories.

The money quote from PW’s review:

There are some strong, original and revealing stories that offer a different and new way of viewing the South, but far too many are technically sound but bloodless.

The money quote from Brooklyn Rail’s “Tokens” series of reviews:

The talent in the collection is consistent, but the voices are varied, making this a provocative and insightful anthology of Southern craft.

From a review at Alvah’s Books:

If a Southern anthology captures the collective unconsciousness of its population, then how do their struggles and dreams differ from those of other regions? How does a story capture place? What does it mean to be Southern? How can this be contrasted with what it means to be more generally American, and do themes like alienation, teen pregnancy, desperate love and suicide have a greater significance in the south than elsewhere? Or are these themes common to the broader cultural landscape in an age of disrupted families, economic decline and the homogenizing effect of mass media? These are all reasonable questions that, given the geographic emphasis, resound from the pages of this volume.

More from Conversational Reading:

1. Best American Short Stories 2006 The incomparable Dan Wickett provides some info on an author and a journal that you should be reading. First the author: Benjamin Percy: Benjamin has...
2. Friday Column: Vollmann's Rainbow Stories Over 10 books and tens of thousands of pages later, it’s difficult to peer all the way back to William T. Vollmann’s second book, The...
3. The Complete Cosmicomics: Full Contents and Details On Seven Newly Translated Stories (This story is also available at The Quarterly Conversation.) Later this year, Penguin U.K. will publish a "complete Cosmicomics." The volume will bring together short...
4. Forthcoming: Driftless by David Rhodes Driftless is publishing next week in paperback. It is the first book in 30 years from American author David Rhodes. From the publisher’s website:...
5. Anchor Book of Short Stories I’ve been hearing lots of good things about the new Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. One of the highest compliments I’ve heard thus...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.