Richard Ford who is among the finest of American novelists & short story writers edits & introduces this volume. First published by Granta in 1992 it became the definitive anthology of American short fiction written in the last half of the twentieth century
- an exemplary choice in the words of the Washington Post"
- with stories by writers such as Eudora Welty John Cheever & Raymond Carver (and forty others) demonstrating how much memorable power can lie in the briefest narration. Along with " The Granta Book of the American Short Story: Volume 2" this book constitutes an important reflection & judgment of recent American writing
- as well as the superb pleasure yielded by the stories themselves."