91. The Best American Short Stories 2007 by Stephen King

As a huge fan of short stories, I always anticipate the new addition to this wonderful series. I am not however a fan of Stephen King, so I was a little leery about his selections. On a whole, they are very strong, emotionally powerful stories. Writers such as T.C. Boyle, Mary Gordon, Richard Russo, and Alice Munro are included in this year’s edition. King writes a funny introduction about going to a big bookstore to find literary magazines and how they are always on the bottom shelf of the magazine racks, which is absolutely true.

For this anthology, King chose 20 short stories that were originally published between January 2006 and January 2007 in an American or Canadian periodical. All writers have to be either American or Canadian also, or writers who have made the US their home. For me, the strongest stories were T.C. Boyle’s “Balto” about a young girl who is dealing with the aftermath of a car accident due to her alcoholic father and the mesmerizing “Dimension” by Alice Munro about a battered woman visiting her husband who has killed their children in prison.