Brooks, however, errs in a different way by setting up criteria that may have proved too restrictive. In her introduction, she makes clear that for her plot is everything. There’s nothing wrong with the intricately plotted story, but, given her prejudice, the elegantly written vignette, or the artful, maybe cerebral, character study wouldn’t stand a chance of inclusion. Likewise, Brooks dismisses as stale stories about adultery and love stories with bleak endings. If he were still alive, how would Updike ever get a story in Brooks’s “best’’ collection? She also seems to have little use for the “MFAfia,’’ writers who hold graduate degrees in creative writing.
Despite her laundry list of biases, she’s stumbled upon some very good stories, many by writers whose work has been included in previous collections, including such heavyweights as Joyce Carol Oates and Richard Powers, Pulitzer Prize winners Steven Millhauser and Jennifer Egan, and fine but lesser-known writers: Rebecca Makkai, George Saunders, and Allegra Goodman. Stories by Elizabeth McCracken and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie appear in “BASS’’ for the first time.
In “Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart,’’ one of the best in the collection, Makkai draws comparisons between the deteriorating artistic world and her characters’ lives. Drew and actor Peter have been friends since childhood; when Peter’s life degenerates, Drew risks his career to help him. Makkai’s stories have been included in “BASS’’ four consecutive years. Awkward 13-year-old outcast Lisette tolerates life with her blackjack-dealing mother in Oates’s “ID’’ and must eventually identify her body. In “To the Measures Fall,’’ Powers depicts a woman whose days from student to 60-ish cancer victim are preoccupied by an obscure book.
