The Best American Short Stories 2012

The acclaimed author “assembles a stellar collection of twenty stories that create their own worlds in twenty pages or less” (USA Today).

Tom Perrotta explains in his introduction that “all of [these stories] took me somewhere I didn't expect to go, and jolted me into that state of heightened awareness and emotional receptivity that's one of the great rewards of reading good fiction.”

In Nathan Englander s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, a playful discussion between two married couples veers into darker territory, exposing a secret that might have been better left unspoken. Taiye Selasi writes a portrait of a motherless girl in Africa, where her transition into womanhood may not be cause for celebration. Adam Wilson's entry gives us a window onto a movie set where the narrator aches for something cinematic to happen in his life. Roxane Gay s North Country introduces us to an unlikely couple who circle each other in a wary dance of approach and avoidance. An unexpected visitor kicks off a wonderfully strange fable about how we look at ourselves in Steven Millhauser s Miracle Polish.