COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2023, edited by Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey, are printed proof that the art of the short story is alive and well. It's the second such collection from Coffey and Wish, who is a talented writer himself (WATCH ME GO, CONFESSIONS OF A POLISH USED CAR SALESMAN, ALL WEEKEND WITH THE LIGHTS ON). I read the CAS 2022 collection and can attest to its excellence too.

Each story here is unique, and will quickly draw you in. Here are a few examples -

"... I had my first adult sexual experience in the women's room of a middle school theater, and I met the wife who divorced me at church and the wife who stayed with me after she stuck a knife in my back, and all of this is a reminder to me that nothing is ever as it is first reported." ("Attachment" by Daniel Borofsky)

See? You're interested, right? Or there's this one, which will tug at your heartstrings, about a single mother working a fast food job with two small kids of her own, plus two of her addict sister's, and she has just given birth again -

"I can't feed another mouth, though. This really is the only way. Five is a lot of kids for a single moms. So it's not about whether or not I love my new baby. Because I do. That's only clear thing. And, as Larry says, giving him up is the greatest act of love." ("The Only Way" by T.E. Wilderson)

Or there is Nancy J. Fagan's, "The Brick," an equally moving tale about an older widow who suddenly discovers she is a grandmother when her estranged son and his wife are found dead of drug overdoses, leaving behind a damaged, nonverbal little boy placed 'temporarily' in her custodial care.

If I had to pick a favorite from this bunch, it would have to be R.C. Goodwin's "A Mother's Last Request," in which a gay woman's mother can't quite accept her daughter's sexual identity and, dying, implores her to try heterosexuality, at least once. This makes for some interesting situations, some funny, some not so much, as well as some surprises. For example, seeking advice on this from a gay male friend, she asks if he had ever been "with a woman" He replies -

"I was once, believe it or not. I was seventeen. A teenage boy will have sex with a Chihuahua if there's nothing else around."

He admits, however, that during the experience, he was fantasizing about Sugar Ray Leonard. And this story's conclusion will surprise you. It did me. But I loved it.

There are thirteen stories in CAS 2023. I loved ten of them. The other three didn't quite work for me. But hey, ten outa thirteen? That ain't half bad. Like short stories? Then try this book. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )