The Oxford Book Of American Short Stories, edited by Joyce Carol Oates

 

This large anthology (over 800 pages) brings together stories written by American authors from the earliest colonial times to the present.  Early authors include Washington Irving, William Austin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville and Samuel Clemens.  The most recently published authors include Junot Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Pinckney Benedict, David Foster Wallace, Lorrie Moore, Ha Jin, Jeffrey Ford, Louise Erdrich, Amy Hempel, T.C. Boyle, Stephen King, Tim O'Brien, Tobias Wolff and Richard Ford.

As expected with such a wide range of decades, a diversity of opinions and topics are covered.  There are stories about being an immigrant, a story about the economic truths of various times, about families, about making a living and the role of family in a well-lived life, and other topics.  The stories include those that are surprising, those meant to rally readers to a specific point of view or a plan of action against some outrage and those meant merely to entertain.  There are many other authors between the early writers and the most recent one, authors whose names are familiar to readers everywhere.  Some of these include Henry James, Langston Hughes, William Faulkner, Donald Barthelme, and Kate Chopin.  

This anthology was edited by Joyce Carol Oates whose name is synonymous with quality writing and one of her stories is included in the anthology.  She has done a wonderful job of including stories with diverse viewpoints which are inclusive of the entire range of men and women who have written as Americans.  I am fairly well-read yet had read few of these stories and each discovery of another new gem was a delight.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.