Jim Shepard

Culling the vastness of experience--from its bizarre fringes and breathtaking pinnacles to the desperately below average--like an expert curator, Jim Shepard populates this collection wildly diverse and wholly fascinating characters, like the inventor of the Godzilla epics to a miserable G.I. in New Guinea, each complicit in his or her downfall.

In the wilderness of junior high, Edwin Hanratty is at the bottom of the food chain. His teachers find him a nuisance. His fellow students consider him prey. And although his parents are not oblivious to his troubles, they can't quite bring themselves to fathom the ruthless forces that demoralize him daily.
Sharing in these schoolyard indignities is his only friend, Flake. Branded together as misfits, their fury simmers quietly in the hallways,...

Presents a selection of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

"The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories take place in such far-flung locales as a gorgeous sailboat in Hong Kong, a Cuban sugar plantation, the Kenai River in Alaska, a mansion in New Delhi, a ship torpedoed by a German U-boat, and the ghost-haunted rubble of a Turkish girls' school. Also included are the editor's introduction,...