THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9506300678
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY GAIL GRIFFIN
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
PRIZE STORIES 1995
The O. Henry Awards
EDITED BY WILLIAM ABRAHAMS
Doubleday. 382 pp. $25.
Familiar voices, up-and-comers and newcomers share acclaim in the 1995 edition of the O. Henry Awards, with erratic results - often stunning, sometimes disappointing.
This year marks the 75th volume of the awards, which honor the best American-written short stories that appeared in American magazines, both mainstream and literary. An editor chooses the stories from the ranks of publications ranging from The Atlantic Monthly to Zyzzyva, a San Francisco journal.
To mark the awards' 75th anniversary, William Abrahams, the series' editor since 1967, provides a little perspective on how the genre has metamorphosed since 1919. The American short story first evolved from a conventional, genteel narrative into the ``modern story,'' developed by such greats as Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Several decades later, postmodernism took root and blossomed, ushering in an era of eclecticism in form, tone and style.
Abrahams' choices for Prize Stories 1995 reflect that tradition of diversity, with an especially strong contrast among the first-, second-and third-prize winners.
Cornelia Nixon's ``The Women Come and Go,'' the first-prize winner, mines familiar territory in its seamless account of three young women growing up in New England in the early '60s. In contrast, ``Talking to Charlie'' by John J. Clayton, the second-place winner, is a purposely disjointed metafiction, with the writer-narrator struggling to find the best way to tell the tale of a man patching his soul together in midlife. Meanwhile, ``Shot: A New York Story'' by Elizabeth Hardwick, the third-prize winner, jarringly zips in and out of the minds of its characters, New Yorkers whose lives are touched slightly when a maid is shot to death.
The strengths of this collection lie not in the well-established writers represented here, but in the voices of others who are just beginning to build their reputations.
Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike and Ellen Gilchrist turn in well-crafted but somewhat uninspired efforts.
More vibrant tales include Bernard Cooper's ``Truth Serum,'' about a man who uses sodium pentathol to help him understand his homosexuality; and Allegra Goodman's ``Sarah,'' which follows a few days in the life of a middle-aged woman who teaches religious creative writing to adults.
Balancing these gems are a few duds that ring false, such as Alice Adams' ``The Haunted Beach'' and Peter Cameron's ``Departing.'' These stories achieve neither the style nor the sophistication that they struggle toward.
Despite these few dubious choices, Prize Stories 1995 leaves readers hopeful about the strength of today's short stories and hungry for more. These choices remind short-story aficionados that beyond the staid pages of heavyweights such as The New Yorker lies a host of stories, remarkable in their diversity, waiting to be found.
- MEMO: Gail Griffin is a staff editor. by CNB