Tag Archives: BASS

The final selection, Do Something by Kate Walbert finishes up one of the best BASS anthologies I’ve read.  Not a head-scratcher among them and so I get the feeling that Stephen King and I may share some similar taste in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Jim Shepard gives us a narrator who serves as executioner during the French Revolution–no wonder Stephen King included this one in the anthology!  I’m sure Mr. King was just twitching with delight at Shepard’s fine delivery, realistically presented in the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This one by Richard Russo didn’t quite draw me in.  A graduate student teaching at a college and finding one of her students plagiarizing a paper is interwoven with her dealings with two difference professors–one a brilliant man she admires … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Absolutely loved this one by Karen Russell, and for two reasons: it was a bit off the wall–a convent school run by nuns for, well, girls who have been raised by wolves, and secondly, because it was well done. Normally … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’ve not finished this story yet, but it is truly delightful and with no further explanation but the title (above) let me share this, a scenario in which Claudette, the narrator is paired with Mirabella, a younger girl to feed … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This would likely qualify as horror story for many male readers, this story by Eileen Pollack–who seems to understand well the fear getting a circumcision as an adult would inspire. We certainly have the wanting and how far someone would … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Alice Munro has been one of my favorite short story writers yet this story–while very compelling a topic–was not as brilliantly executed as what I’ve read of hers before. The subject is of course very touchy; an older man seduces … Continue reading → Continue reading →

First published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, this story by Bruce McAllister would qualify as mystery, adventure as easily as sci fi.  Oddly enough, though it is written in first person pov, there is a subtitle of The Retired Operative … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This short story by Aryn Kyle starts out with immediate tension, one that is well known and understood in some form by most readers: change, leaving the comfort of the known to be the new member of an already established … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Written by Stellar Kim, this short story is also written in a different style format, in the naming of incidents to separate the paragraphs into a more aloof, documentary told story.  This mimics in fact the first person narrator’s need … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This one’s edgy.  Roy Kesey has written a story about passengers in an airport forced to wait what turns out to be days while a lot of strange stuff goes on.  The writing style, short, quick, action-paced sentences get us … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Another of my favorites here, this story by Beverly Jensen is an excellent example of insight into a family script via dialogue in particular, and brought out by a dramatic change in the lives of the characters via the death … Continue reading → Continue reading →

By Beverly Jensen, this short story starts out with a most interesting complication: Boston, January 1956"Good God Almighty.  We’ve lost the damned body."  Avis stood on the North Station train platform, her small leather suitcase pressed between her knees as … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Written by Lauren Groff, this story is one that contains all the elements of good narrative.  There is drama, there is conflict, there is a pace that keeps steady and builds and recedes with the plot points.  It also scored … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Written by Mary Gordon, this short story also seems like it is of another era, or perhaps it just the lifestyle that seems foreign. There is a setting of a false sense of security and  affectation in a woman who … Continue reading → Continue reading →