Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Editor’s Introduction xi

Toni Cade, "Bambara The Lesson" (1972) 3
Ann Beattie, "The Burning House" (1979) 12
Bobbie Ann Mason "Big Bertha Stories" (1982) 30
Amy Hempel, "Beg, Sl Tog, Inc, Cont, Rep" (1985) 48
Ellen Gilchrist, "Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle" (1989) 59
Stephanie Vaughn, "Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog" (1990) 83
Margaret Atwood, "Hairball" (1991) 99
Amy Bloom, "Silver Water" (1991) 115
Sandra Cisneros, "Never Marry a Mexican" (1991) 126
Joyce Carol Oates, "Love, Forever" (1992) 142
Jamaica Kincaid, "Song of Roland" (1993) 146
Andrea Barrett, "The Littoral Zone" (1996) 156
Mary Gaitskill, "Tiny, Smiling Daddy" (1997) 167
Gish Jen, "Who’s Irish?" (1998) 182
Lorrie Moore, "Dance in America" (1998) 195
Lynn Freed "Ma, a Memoir" (1999) 206
Jhumpa Lahiri, "A Temporary Matter" (1999) 211
Alice McDermott, "Enough" (2000) 231
Alice Munro, "Floating Bridge" (2000) 239
ZZ Packer, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" (2000) 265
Marisa Silver, "The Passenger" (2000) 288
Louise Erdrich, "The Shawl" (2001) 307
Andrea Lee, "The Birthday Present" (2001) 315
Grace Paley, "My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age" (2002) 334

About the Authors 345

About the Author

WENDY MARTIN is chair of the Department of English at Claremont Graduate University. She is also the editor of We Are the Stories We Tell (available from Pantheon). She lives in Berkeley, California.

Reviews

“This is a masterly collection of the work of writers who almost invariably deliver the deep pleasures of first-rate literature. It is a joy and a privilege simply to hold it in one’s hands.”
—Vivian Gornick
 
“Engrossing, inventive, inspiring, the stories gathered here testify to the range and richness of women’s literary traditions as they have triumphantly moved into the twenty-first century. Wendy Martin’s shrewd selections document contemporary complexities along with the enduring powers of the authorial imagination. Read and rejoice.”
—Sandra M. Gilbert, author of The Madwoman in the Attic
 
“Reading these sparkling stories by contemporary masters is pure pleasure. No sooner did I finish one than I was drawn into the next. Together they constitute an eloquent tribute to the fine art of American short fiction.”
—Alix Kates Shulman, author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen
 
“This wonderful collection gives us a rich sense of the varieties of female experience, allowing us to experience nuanced, insightful, gripping, and sometimes humorous accounts of the emotional and cultural-political worlds in which women create their lives.”
—Nancy J. Chodorow, author of The Reproduction of Mothering
 
“More Stories We Tell builds a many-chambered honeycomb out of myriad female experiences, and the whole is subtly greater than the sum of the intricate parts. The anthology is a pleasure to read from beginning to end—expertly selected fiction that would be at home in any ‘Best Of’ collection. A book to give as well as to savor.”
—Diane Middlebrook, author of Her Husband: Hughes and Plath—A Marriage