Book Review: New Stories from the South, 2010

I've been reading this annual collection of the year's best short stories of the South for over a decade now. The 2010 collection was put together by editor is writer Amy Hempel, who appears, by her biography, to be solidly northern. I wonder why this anthology is put together by someone from the north? I find that interesting. I've never actually noticed the editor's origins in the past decade or so, but now I might have to go back and look.

But I digress. These stories were, for the most part, hopeless and depressing. Like some places in the south, and everywhere. The characters were meth addicts, rednecks, and lost people, like some people in the south, and everywhere. Even Wendell Berry's and Dorothy Allison's stories were swallowed up in this rather cold collection. There was a lot of fishing going on. The stories all went together very well, but I can't remember really enjoying any of them.

So. Maybe next year's collection will be more to my liking. The end.