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Favorite Short Story Collections of 2021

November 18, 2021 by in On Books

I’ve spent 2021 working on my short story craft and immersing myself in great short fiction. Here’s a list of collections I’ve read this year that I recommend for anyone searching for holiday gift ideas.

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A Natural History of Transition by Callum Angus

Sometimes short story compilations are hit-and-miss for me, with some pieces I love and others I just shrug my shoulders at. This is not that sort of collection. As I tore through its pages, I found each story in A Natural History of Transition just as strong, compelling and smart as the next. Perhaps this is because it combines so many of my favorite elements: writing about nature and the environment, speculative twists, the exploration of gender and identity. Or perhaps author Callum Angus, a trans writer based in Portland, Oregon, is just that good.

It’s hard to pick favorites within the collection, but if I had to, it would be “In Kind,” a story about a transgender man who decides to have a baby and gives birth to a cocoon, “Migration,” which features a character with the most original attitude toward climate change I’ve ever read, and “Moon Snail,” about a female scientist struggling with the dichotomy of feeling so connected to the natural world yet so isolated from humanity and the roles assigned to women.  

Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell

 If you aren’t yet familiar with Karen Russell, stop whatever you’re doing and read the title story of her most recent short story collection, Orange World, in which a woman agrees to breastfeed the devil in exchange for a healthy baby. Like all the best speculative fiction, the story takes something seemingly ordinary (in this case, motherhood and the fears that go with it) and uses the fantastic to crack it open, revealing how bizarre, at-times horrifying, at-times absurd and ultimately empowering it can be.

The rest of the stories in the collection are very different, but highly thought provoking and often downright funny. I chuckled at the weird and surreal humor in “Bog Girl: A Romance,” about a teenage boy who finds the ancient, preserved remains of a girl in a local bog– and then proceeds to date her. I loved the poignant relationships, rural setting, and strangely plausible premise of “The Tornado Auction,” about an old rancher who raises and sells tornados.

 In fact, I enjoyed the book so much, I went back and read Russell’s previous two collections, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, which were also excellent. I recommend them all.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

I’ve had this collection on my “Why-Haven’t-I-Read-This-Yet?” list for a while now and was so excited to finally get to it. It’s won a ton of awards and accolades and deserves every one of them. I was fascinated by how its unique mix of genres — literary, horror, erotica, science fiction and fantasy – combine to make stories that are somehow eerily familiar yet utterly original, high-concept yet surprisingly accessible.

My favorite was “The Husband Stitch,” which illuminates the everyday misogyny of a “good” husband and the scary stories we tell around campfires.

Also breathtaking was “Inventory.” In one sense, the story is simply a list of the lovers a woman has had over her lifetime, and yet in another, it conjures a post-apocalyptic tale of survival and loneliness straight out of our worst pandemic nightmares.

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

This is one of those books I re-read every few years in simple hope that some of the authors’ literary fairy dust might rub off on me.

One of my favorites stories within the collection is “Who Will Greet You at Home,” set in a world where women don’t get pregnant but make children like dolls, out of yarn, hair and other items.

“Windfalls,” is about the twisted love between a mother and daughter who stage accidents so they can live off the resulting legal settlements. It’s so painful, I have trouble reading it every time, yet it’s breathtaking in its force and honesty.

And the tender relationship between father and child in “Light,” just makes me want to wrap them both up in a big hug and protect them from the rest of the world.  

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

For those who like to ponder philosophy, religion and the meaning of life while exploring the wilds of science fiction and fantasy, there is Ted Chiang. His latest collection continues to both challenge and soothe our consciences.

My favorite of the group was “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” which explores a future where all memory is recorded, searchable and available to view on demand. Avoiding the knee-jerk dystopian futures commonly depicted in TV shows like Black Mirror, the story shows how a flawed father uses the technology to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter.

A close second: “The Great Silence,” told from the point of view of a parrot, who points out the tragedy and irony of human beings as we desperately search for intelligent life on other planets while killing off so much intelligent life on our own.  

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

 I confess: The first few times I sat down to read this mammoth anthology (1,126 pages!), I bounced right off it. “Weird” fiction is challenging by its very nature, and I had a hard time connecting with some of the initial stories, the first of which was published in 1908, given the differences in pacing and narrative expectations between then and now.  

Then a light bulb went on. I should read the anthology backwards – from the most recently published stories at the end to the earliest at the front. Instantly, I was sucked down the rabbit hole. Among my favorites were Michael Chabon’s “The God of Dark Laughter,” a haunting murder mystery with a fantastical twist, “Last Rites and Resurrections,” a story in which a grieving father develops the ability to talk to roadkill, and “Lion’s Den,” in which a teenage boy breaks into the lion enclosure of a zoo and, as the pride closes in for the kill, suddenly disappears.

These later stories gave me context and greater appreciation for the earlier published works. And, although I’m still not sure exactly what defines a story as “weird,” I know for certain I want to read more of them.

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