This is an outstanding collection of short stories. I had previously read The Best American Short Stories 2021 and, while I was impressed by Jesmyn Ward and Heidi Pitlor’s selections, I was blown away by Lauren Groff’s (also co-edited by Pitlor).

I was particularly impressed by Jamel Brinkley’s “Blessed Deliverance,” Katherine Damm’s “The Happiest Day of Your Life,” Molly Dektar’s “The Bed and Breakfast,” Madeline ffitch’s “Seeing Through Maps,” Allegra Hyde’s “Democracy in America,” Taisia Kitaiskaia’s “Engelond,” Jhumpa Lahiri’s “P’s Parties,” and Suzanne Wang’s “Mall of America.”

Given that the collection only has twenty stories, a very large number of them affected me. If I had to narrow them down to a “short list,” the top four must be Brinkley’s, with its quiet passage of time; Damm’s, where the narrator’s increasingly drunken–almost Dionysian–condition adds dramatic tension; ffitch’s, which highlights decades of resentments but also togetherness; and Wang’s “Mall of America,” a particularly interesting take on technology, migration, and aging.

The whole collection was strengthened by Groff’s introduction: her writing has so much energy that you simply don’t see very much. It is entirely different from the nearly withdrawn, scholarly introductions that you see at the beginning of many other anthologies of short stories.

I’m so glad I read this and I hope you will too.