Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008

Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm cool and literary. If I had more time and money, this double identity would involve reading magazines like n+1 and The Paris Review, and being familiar with the hip new short story writers. But I have neither time nor cash, so I depend on Dave Eggers's Best American Nonrequired Reading every year to fill the gap.

But the collection has been disappointing in recent years, and I thought about skipping it this year altogether. Then I saw who wrote the introduction for the 2008 edition: Judy Blume. Five minutes later, the Amazon transaction was complete. (My inner eleven-year-old makes far too many of my financial decisions.)

It's not actually a traditional intro, but rather an interview with Ms. Blume. It's full of non-sequiturs (and features a hand-drawn self-portrait), but it's entertaining enough. Plus, it reveals that her favorite Judy Blume book is also mine (Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, FYI).

The "Best American ___" lists at the front were uneven as usual. Bad hipster band names stop being funny after the first two. But I did like "Best American NY Times Headlines from 1907" and "Best American Facebook Groups," which included:

Legalize Dueling
Automatic Doors Make Me Feel Like a Jedi
I Have to Sing the ABCs to Know Which Letter Comes Before the Other
It Wasn’t Awkward Until You Said “Well, This Is Awkward.” Now It’s Awkward.
Carol Never Wore Her Safety Goggles. Now She Doesn't Need Them.

And I really liked
Best American Diary of the Living Dead: Are You There, God? It's Me. Also a Bunch of Zombies. It's no zombie-version-of-The Great Gatsby, but then what is?

The journalism is so-so. There's a New Yorker article that I never made it through when it was in the magazine. They reprint the Pulitzer-winning piece on Joshua Bell and busking that still makes me feel guilty when I tune out subway musicians. And the requisite Serious International Piece (an essay about African-Americans and Israel by Emily Raboteau) is interesting, but overlong. Probably the most interesting one is "Bill Clinton, Public Citizen," by George Saunders. Saunders was on the press corps for Clinton's big African tour, and giddy about it from start to finish. The Vanity Fair article, this is not. It does provide flashes of the old, much more fun Bill Clinton--pre-primary. In fact, I think Hillary is mentioned just once, in passing. The article is much more about Saunders's mancrush on Bill. Also, AIDS patients in Africa. But mostly the mancrush.

The short stories are better."Darkness," by Andrew Sean Greer, explores the relationship of an elderly lesbian couple, set against the backdrop of the sun's sudden and total disappearance. I'd disliked Greer's previous novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, but he's redeemed himself now. Another story I enjoyed was "Cake" by Patrick Tobin, which follows a thoroughly unlikeable chronic pain patient through a final meltdown. A new story by Stephen King was good too (slightly eerie, decently written, and only partly set in New England).

The graphic novel excerpts, well...I'm still not a graphic novel convert. I'm trying, but when one of the chosen excerpts is about a graphic novelist who has trouble writing his graphic novel, things are getting a little too meta. Give me good old-fashioned prose any day. But they do add visual interest to the book.

All in all, the book made for good subway reading--and now I can hold off on that Paris Review subscription for at least another year!