Edited by Suzanne Hudson with Joe Formichella and Mandy Haynes
Livingston Press, 2023
Paperback: $19.95
Genre: Short Stories
Reviewed by Edward Journey
Southern Writers Reading, a “literary slugfest” held on a pre-Thanksgiving November weekend in Fairhope, Alabama, from 1998 to 2008, has become legendary to those of us who heard about it but never attended. Now we have a welcome opportunity to get an abundant taste of what was in the new collection, The Best of the Shortest: A Southern Writers Reading Reunion. An actual in-person reunion is planned for November 2023 and the book’s release is in conjunction with the event. All royalties and profits from the book will go to Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, a nonprofit that was inspired by Southern Writers Reading.
Southern Writers Reading was the brainchild of Sonny Brewer, proprietor of Fairhope’s Over the Transom bookstore and author of the novel, The Poet of Tolstoy Park, among other publications. Brewer edited Red Bluff Review, which featured writers who participated in the event that grew from three writers reading and a book signing to a full weekend of writer- and audience-centric events.
For The Best of the Shortest, Brewer has yielded editorial duties to Suzanne Hudson, assisted by Joe Formichella and Mandy Haynes. There are over forty writers represented in close to sixty pieces. Word limit for each piece was set at 1500 words. A few are longer than that; most are shorter. The volume is inspired by and dedicated to the memory of writer William Gay (1941-2012), a participant in the first Southern Writers Reading and a perennial thereafter. In addition to the dedication, Gay is represented by his haunting painting, “The Harrikin,” on the book’s back cover, a surprise to those who don’t know that the distinctive writer was also an instinctive painter. Dawn Major contributes a final essay exploring how the two endeavors mesh.
Hudson, by design, includes more selections by women authors than men, and includes more than one piece by many of those women, especially Beth Ann Fennelly, who is represented six times. Hudson does this, as she frequently reminds us in a scrappy introduction, because “I am the [blankety-blank] editor.” Rick Bragg is the only male writer to get more than one entry; Hudson has her reasons for that, too. Hudson and her editorial partner (and husband) Joe Formichella each have a story in the collection. Hudson’s introduction, the nature of the collection, and the bonds forged by the writers over the span of Southern Writers Reading give the book a clubby feel. Jim Gilbert’s Afterword, “The Café under the Transom,” provides a personal history of Southern Writers Reading.
Because of the length of the selections – and the quantity – reading The Best of the Shortest occasionally felt like a throwback to my teaching days when I was going through a stack of student essays. Fortunately, these are very talented students, the writing is of a high caliber, and there is something of value to garner from each. Unlike my teaching days, I did not regret reading any of it.
I hesitate to single out individual stories and writers because it is inevitable that worthy mentions will be left out or overlooked. Writers who are known to me may not be familiar to other readers. Conversely, I was not familiar with some names that I suspect others might know quite well. Readers should not just stick with the authors they know and like as they pick and choose in the collection; doing so, they might miss out on a surprise or a fresh new voice.
To review the book, I read it in order as presented. In a collection like this, with so many writers and styles represented, it’s a challenge to try to find the throughlines, make connections, and label the groupings that represent that link. It’s interesting to try to conjure the mindset of the editor as the placement of contents was determined. An early connection is easily made when Beth Ann Fennelly’s essay “Married Love,” about her writer husband’s tendency to include a “horrible death” for a character named after one of her pre-marriage boyfriends in each of his books, is paired with an essay by Fennelly’s husband, Tom Franklin, feeling perhaps a little insecure about “My Wife’s Good-Looking Friends.” These essays team well with Michelle Richmond’s “The Man of the House Comes Home” to present an honest examination of the challenges of “Marriage.”
Stories by Michelle Richmond, Daren Wang, Patricia Foster, and David Wright Falade consider “Race” from several angles. Stories by authors Suzanne Kingsbury, Bev Marshall, and Janet Nodar represent the paired categories of “Vietnam” and “Veterans.” A trio of stories by Joe Formichella, Frank Turner Hollon, and Dayne Sherman became, in my mind, “Gnarly Men,” while a couple of stories by George Singleton and Ron Rash might qualify as “White Trash” stories. An excerpt from Doug Crandell’s Pig Boy’s Wicked Bird and Robert St. John’s “Chitlins” give two wildly contrasting stories about “Pork.” St. John manages to eradicate any curiosity I might still harbor about eating chitterlings.
Remember, these are just my casual headings for reference; editor Hudson allows each entry to speak for itself.
One particularly memorable grouping, represented by Suzanne Hudson, Beth Ann Fennelly, and Daniel Wallace, falls under my heading of “Child Abuse.” In Wallace’s “Welcome to Monroe,” a terrifying story of child abduction, it’s the unflinching devotion of a dog named Abernathy that becomes the emotional clincher. In the collection’s final story, “Dear Friend,” Rick Bragg commiserates with Sonny Brewer over the loss of a dog named Cormac.
Distinctive stand-alone writers and stories that do not fit into my particular larger groupings (other than their connection to Southern Writers Reading) include works by some of the aforementioned as well as Marlin Barton, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Patricia Foster, Robert Gatewood, Jason Headley, James Horton, Jr., Joshilyn Jackson, Brett Anthony Johnston, Abbott Kahler, Doug Kelley, Cassandra King, Michael Morris, Jennifer Paddock, Theodore Pitsios, Lynn Pruett, R.P. Saffire, Sidney Thompson, Mac Walcott, and Karen Spears Zacharias.
The Best of the Shortest is a special collection, spotlighting the range and diversity of writers who are from or have passed through the South, and commemorates a singularly rich time in the literary life of Fairhope – “the home of more writers than readers” in the words of Sonny Brewer. A publisher from California, attending Southern Writers Reading, once told Jim Gilbert, “We do this in San Francisco, we get seven people. You do it here in this little Alabama town, and a hundred plus show up.” The Best of the Shortest captures a time that still binds such a far-flung range of writers, stories, and experience. Hilarious at times and gut-wrenching at others, these stories celebrate the written word.
Edward Journey, a retired educator and theatre professional living in Birmingham, regularly shares his essays in the online journal “Professional Southerner” (www.professionalsoutherner.com).
