A map of where literary fiction was emotionally and politically sitting in the late 2010s: fractured intimacy, racial violence, masculinity, migration, loneliness, digital alienation, suburban dread, bodily unease, and the absurdity of contemporary life.

As with the strongest entries in the series and with compilations generally, the real pleasure comes from collision rather than cohesion — wildly different voices forced into conversation with one another across a single volume. The lineup here is particularly strong. You’ve got Yoon Choi, Emma Cline, Danielle Evans, Rivers Solomon, Téa Obreht, Curtis Sittenfeld, Dina Nayeri and Esmé Weijun Wang alongside a range of lesser-known writers pulled from journals like Granta, The Iowa Review, Tin House, Guernica, Zoetrope: All-Story, and The Southern Review. 

Roxane Gay’s editorial framing is also worth mentioning because it resists the polished neutrality these anthologies sometimes fall into. The foreword situates the stories within an America defined by institutional instability, violence, spectacle, paranoia and exhaustion, giving the collection a stronger historical texture than many “best of” literary anthologies. As a result, the book reads not just as a collection of good stories, but as a cultural artefact of a very particular atmosphere.

Paperback edition published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2018. Very good condition with light shelf wear to covers and clean internals.