Pushcart Prize XIV: Best of the Small Presses 1989-90 FROM THE PUBLISHER
Acclaimed as the largest and broadest literary anthology, The Pushcart Prize once again offers an extraordinary collection of short stories, essays, and poetry first published by small presses and magazines from around the world.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Bearing many gifts, this latest edition of the celebrated annual small-press anthology brims with writing that challenges the mind and enlarges one's vision. A few contributors experiment with form. Joyce Carol Oates's ``Party,'' one huge paragraph long, turns on the contrast between the chatty, cultured, academic atmosphere and the fate of a female voice instructor dying of cancer; Edward Hoagland's ``Learning to Eat Soup'' is an olio of fragmentary sketches (on his father's death, on eating a porcupine, etc.), aphorisms and thumbnail portraits of literary lions. Other stories mirror social-political pressures or tackle topical issues. In Charles Baxter's ``Westland,'' an English-born resident of Detroit fires a gun at a nuclear reactor. A sixth-grade teacher fondles his students sexually in Michael Martone's scary, all-too-real ``The Safety Patrol.'' Standouts among the essays include Diane Johnson's analysis of the lost art of plotting in fiction, and Julian Barnes's reminiscence of chess-playing Arthur Koestler at 77. Poetry entries include Mark Doty's piercing portrayal of a woman going mad, and Jim Moore's autobiographical meld of Vietnam War resistance and Zen. (Oct.)
Home
