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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The Best Australian Stories anthology brings together Australia’s most striking literary talents and provides a platform for those unpublished gems. This year Stella Prize–winning author Charlotte Wood takes the helm, putting together yet another enchanting collection. ...' (Source: Publisher's website)
Contents
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Introduction,
single work
essay
(p. vii-ix)'Like many writers, I keep a collection of talismanic, consoling or provocative quotations from other artists dose to hand. Lately these seem to be coming from painters more than writers — like the American abstractionist Laurie Fendrich, who says the notion that abstraction is always about self-expression is both romantic and narcissistic. Abstraction can also be about ideas, she says: 'The complex struggle between order and chaos, for example, or how the flux of the organic world modifies the rigor of geometry.'' (Introduction)
-
Monster Diary,
single work
short story
(p. 1-5)'A monster is something too big or too small, too dark or too light, too much of one thing or not enough of another. It is ugly and its ugliness makes people turn away. A monster is unable to speak like us. A monster cannot fit comfortably into a chair. It thinks about flesh and eating and pain and misery and ecstasy. It cannot articulate these needs but must enact them. Sometimes the monster does not know it is a monster. It lurches towards you expecting you to open your arms and embrace its desires, its needs, its drive. ' (Introduction)
-
Animals of the Savannah,
single work
short story
(p. 6-20)'Raffaello's face had grown in the years between fifteen and seventeen, forming a kind of clod, as though the new face was a growth over the first, finer one. He was going out with Katie Goldsworthy now. They were our Romeo and Juliet. You might wonder how I knew this as I had, now that Judy was gone, absolutely no friends. But it was the news, which is democratic in its reach. Even I was included when Katie told the story of the secret party on her father's moored yacht, falling asleep in the cabin, being reported as missing, the police called, Katie and Raffaello dragged, beautiful with sleep, out of their berth and onto the deck. I hated myself for being interested, but the other girls made space for me in the circle around Katie, and I gratefully moved into it. ' (Introduction)
-
Moth Sea Fog,
single work
short story
(p. 21-26)'I talk to the moth caught in the car. Driving past heat-mottled dams whiskered with reeds. I tell him about the fog of the day before. It was not just any fog, but a time-fluxing sea fog outrolling the waves, creeping over neap-tide ledges, tickling the glossy anemones with its smoky edges. It made silhouettes of the gods.' (Introduction)
- A Few Days in the Country, single work short story (p. 27-40)
-
Blueglass,
single work
short story
(p. 41-44)'A few years ago I noticed a bright blue smear running all the way across the beach. In the weeks that followed it got bigger, and wider, and soon the sand was a surface of blue glass shards, the whole beach glittered. Tiny little pieces.' (Introduction)
-
Standing in the Cold,
single work
short story
(p. 45-55)
'One Thursday, when Mr Razi had emerged from the subway to walk to his home he saw that the snow had descended from the mountains and covered the streets. He tucked his head into his wool overcoat and his thick silver white hair ruffled out above his collar like a Shahin's open wings. He walked, away from the main road and the sound of train followed on the breath of the snow. He played with the corner of the metro ticket and then submerged his hands deep into his pockets and caressed his keys. On the way home he stopped at the corner shop to buy eggs and then he went to the local chemist to buy his new sleeping pills...' (Introduction)
-
Where Waters Meet,
single work
short story
(p. 56-63)'Millie found her sister hunched over the grill, poking the narrow end of a wooden spoon into a length of hosepipe fitted to the end of the grease tray. The diner was empty except for Peter Hewler. He sat over his steak watching a cowboy movie on the little television mounted on the far wall' (Introduction)
- Love, Actually, single work short story (p. 64-70)
-
Far From Home,
single work
short story
(p. 71-82)'High in the hills it was still too hot, although from the back of an airconditioned car you could almost pretend that it was a European winter, the clouds were so grey and low. In the front seat her mother asked the driver the same questions over and over again, mostly innocuous variation of where he was born, or some harmless query about what they were passing. Then, whenever there was a pause she would lean over to ask whether they had bushfires in these hills. This last one never made sense to him. 'Yeees,' he said, drawing the word out, like a wide uncertain smile, although it was clear he didn't understand her...' (Introduction)
- The Fat Girl in History, single work short story (p. 83-97)
-
A Step, a Stumble,
single work
short story
(p. 98-124)'The phone rang at breakfast, and again while we were dressing for service. Each time he let it ring out. So early it could only be another reporter. It was ringing again as they turned in the front gate, they could hear it through the open kitchen window. He sprinted to the porch and was almost to the door with the key aimed at the lock when the ringing stopped...' (Introduction)
- Good News for Modern Man, single work short story (p. 125-145)
-
Alpine Road,
single work
short story
(p. 146-154)
'Mornings were when they were most forgiving of each other. When they fucked now it was first thing, when they were still kind. Before Clive got sick, he was always up early. He worked at the power plant in Hazelwood. Even when he’d been on night shift, he’d get up and make the coffee.' (Introduction)
-
Coca-Cola Birds Sing Sweetest in the Morning,
single work
short story
(p. 155-163)'But Audrey is partial to the Panasonic birds, a cheaper but no less handsome variety; they acknowledge the dawn without extravagance, pip pip pip pip pip, little notes of fixed widths, such deft, even spacing. They are not meant to be here in the city; Audrey suspects they have migrated from Russet Hill, a network over a hundred kilometres away, renowned for wildflowers. The birds have a talent for evasion, as Audrey has never seen them at the reassignment plant; just as well, perhaps, for to crack open such a tender body, to see the inert parts that produce the sound of her dawn - it would surely be an act of violence. Audrey slips into the morning - or perhaps the morning slips into her, like a suggestion, pip pip pip pip pip - opens her eyes to a crisp blue sky, so bleeding-edged in its clarity. It is the kind of sky that reminds her that she was once loved.' (Introduction)
-
A Review of Over There by Stanislaus Nguyen,
single work
short story
(p. 164-173)'Over There is the third volume of Stan Nguyen's comic memoirs. For a man who, in the course of this book, celebrates his fortieth birthday, that's not bad going. Socrates said famously that the unexamined life was not worth living. If he were alive today, he might have said that the unlived examination is not worth much either...' (Introduction)
- Where Her Sisters Live, single work short story (p. 174-178)
-
Martian Triptych,
single work
short story
science fiction
(p. 179-189)
'It comes with a sound like a river, the noise so loud in the silence of the observatory he turns for a moment to see if Clyde has heard it too, only to realise Clyde is not there, that he left hours ago. Through the door he can see the trees outside, dark against the fading sky, hear the wind in the trees, And then the sound is gone, as quickly as it began...' (Introduction)
-
Blur,
single work
short story
(p. 190-196)'Saminda's uncle regrets waiting for the morning light. He's sorry now and should have woken him earlier. And they should have got going sooner. But he'd heard the roads wouldn't be safe in the dark. And his wife thought they should let the boy try to get some rest. Saminda pulls his Tshirt down over his stomach and looks up at his uncle. 'I didn't sleep,' he says...' (Introduction)
- Grief, single work prose (p. 197-204)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Oceanic Depths
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January-February no. 388 2017; (p. 26)'If a collection of stories is put together on the basis that these are the ‘best Australian stories of 2016’, is it fair or reasonable to hope for some kind of cohesiveness or gestalt beyond those three explicit parameters of quality, place, and time? The answer will depend largely on what the editor’s ideas might be, not only about what makes a good short story, but also about the way to make a group of individual stories add up to a book: to something more than the sum of its parts.'
(Introduction)
-
Introduction
2016
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Best Australian Stories 2016 2016; (p. vii-ix) 'Like many writers, I keep a collection of talismanic, consoling or provocative quotations from other artists dose to hand. Lately these seem to be coming from painters more than writers — like the American abstractionist Laurie Fendrich, who says the notion that abstraction is always about self-expression is both romantic and narcissistic. Abstraction can also be about ideas, she says: 'The complex struggle between order and chaos, for example, or how the flux of the organic world modifies the rigor of geometry.'' (Introduction)
-
Oceanic Depths
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January-February no. 388 2017; (p. 26)'If a collection of stories is put together on the basis that these are the ‘best Australian stories of 2016’, is it fair or reasonable to hope for some kind of cohesiveness or gestalt beyond those three explicit parameters of quality, place, and time? The answer will depend largely on what the editor’s ideas might be, not only about what makes a good short story, but also about the way to make a group of individual stories add up to a book: to something more than the sum of its parts.'
(Introduction)
-
Introduction
2016
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Best Australian Stories 2016 2016; (p. vii-ix) 'Like many writers, I keep a collection of talismanic, consoling or provocative quotations from other artists dose to hand. Lately these seem to be coming from painters more than writers — like the American abstractionist Laurie Fendrich, who says the notion that abstraction is always about self-expression is both romantic and narcissistic. Abstraction can also be about ideas, she says: 'The complex struggle between order and chaos, for example, or how the flux of the organic world modifies the rigor of geometry.'' (Introduction)
