cover image Best American Gay Fiction 3

Best American Gay Fiction 3

. Back Bay Books, $15 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-316-10236-0

This intelligently assembled collection closes with one of the strongest stories (gay or otherwise) of the past few years. ""Preservation News,"" by Allan Gurganus, is putatively a Southern widow's memoir of her friend Tad, a charismatic restorer and architect, who has died of AIDS. Gurganus's brilliantly impersonated narrator lets him combine technical cleverness with depth and pathos; readers may not know whether to grin or weep. It would be a Herculean labor to find 15 other new stories that good, and the editor hasn't. Still, there is more than enough here to interest and absorb readers. Cult favorite and sex-and-violence expert Dennis Cooper contributes the bristly, erotic ""snuff fairy tale"" ""The Freed Weed""; Peter Weltner's ""Buddy Loves Jo-Ann"" is understated to the point of sneakiness; Andrew Sean Greer's elegantly constructed ""The Future of the Flynns"" brings an affable eeriness to its flashbacks and flash-forwards; and Scott Heim's moving ""Deep Green, Pale Purple"" expertly dodges the border of clich . Bouldrey (Genius of Desire), who also edited the first two books in this annual series, has been careful to seek out work in both mainstream venues (like Esquire) and more marginal journals. He appends a ""recommended"" list of stories he couldn't fit in here. (Oct.)