The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013

Laura Furman, the series editor since 2003, and this year's three jurors, Lauren Groff, Edith Pearlman, and Jim Shepard, succeed in honoring the tradition of the O. Henry prize, which was established "to strengthen the art of the short story and to stimulate young authors." The 20 stories presented here possess a beauty and restraint that sparkles and clings to the reader long after the book is set down. The collection features modern fairy tales ("The Summer People" by Kelly Link and "Lay My Head" by L. Annette Binder), stories of redemption and survival ("Sugarcane" by Derek Palacio, Alice Munro's "Leaving Maverly," Deborah Eisenberg's "Your Duck is My Duck,") and obsessive, lovelorn tales of loss and woe ("White Carnations" by Polly Rosenwaike and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "Aphrodisiac)." All previously published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Epoch, One Story, Ploughshares, Granta and other literary outlets, these stories feature rich environments that take us from the cosmopolitan clubs of Manhattan to a burning island paradise, through magical homes filled with unseen people in the lush flower filled south, to the upper crusts of India and around the sugar fields of Cuba. This year's collection will leave the reader hungry and the writer reaching for his or her pen. (Sept.)