The Best American Short Stories 1971
by Wright Morris, Tillie Olsen, Jack Cady, Larry Woiwode, Danny Santiago, William Eastlake, Robert Canzoneri, Russell Banks, Albert Drake, Ivan Prashker
Part of The Best [American] Short Stories
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| Title | Author | (Originally Published In) |
|---|---|---|
| With Che In New Hampshire | Russell Banks | (New American Review) |
| Dotson Gerber Resurrected | Hal Bennett | (Playboy) |
| The Widow, Bereft | James Blake | (Esquire) |
| I Take Care Of Things | Jack Cady | (The Yale Review) |
| Barbed Wire | Robert Canzoneri | (The Southern Review) |
| The Chicken Which Became A Rat | Albert Drake | (The Northwest Review) |
| The Dancing Boy | William Eastlake | (Evergreen Review) |
| Pain Was My Portion | Beth Harvor | (The Hudson Review) |
| No Trace | David Madden | (The Southern Review) |
| Diesel | Don Mitchell | (Shenandoah) |
| The Decline and Fall of Officer Fergerson | Marion Montgomery | (The Georgia Review) |
| Magic | Wright Morris | (The Southern Review) |
| The Gift Bearer | Philip F. O'Connor | (The Southern Review) |
| Requa I | Tillie Olsen | (The Iowa Review) |
| Shirt Talk | Ivan Prashker | (Harper's Magazine) |
| In Late Youth | Norman Rush | (Epoch) |
| The Somebody | Danny Santiago | (Redbook) |
| Xavier Fereira's Unfinished Book: Chapter One | Jonathan Strong | (Triquarterly) |
| The Klausners | Leonard Tushnet | (Prairie Schooner) |
| Bloodflowers | W. D. Valgardson | (Tamarack Review) |
| The Suitor | L. Woiwode | (Mccall's Magazine) |
Discussion questions for The Best American Short Stories 1971
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- 1
How does reading a snapshot of short fiction from 1971 alter your perception of the social and cultural anxieties of that era compared to how we view them today?
- 2
Given that these stories were originally published in a wide array of outlets ranging from literary quarterlies like The Yale Review to mainstream magazines like Playboy, how do you think the venue of publication influenced the style or subject matter of the individual stories?
- 3
Looking across the collection, many of the characters seem to grapple with a sense of isolation or displacement; which story resonated most with you regarding this theme of human disconnection?
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