Jeffrey Eugenides

Madeleine Hanna breaks out of her straight-and-narrow mold when she falls in love with charismatic loner Leonard Bankhead, while at the same time an old friend of hers resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is his destiny.

This collection presents characters in the midst of personal and national crises. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art collapse under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and, in "Bronze," a sexually confused college freshman whose encounter with a stranger on a train leads to a revelation about his past and his future.

For years, they were the best of friends: the grand, erratic Humboldt and the ambitious young Charlie. But now Humboldt has died a failure, and Charlie's success-ridden life has taken various turns for the worse. Then Humboldt acts from the grave to change Charlie's life: he has left Charlie something in his will.

Peter Handke's mother was an invisible woman. Throughout her life--which spanned the Nazi era, the war, and the postwar consumer economy--she struggled to maintain appearances, only to arrive at a terrible recognition: "I'm not human any more." Not long after, she killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills. In A Sorrow Beyond Dreams her son sits down to record what he knows, or thinks he knows, about his mother's life and death before, in his...

When school hunk Trip Fontain convinces the beautiful but sheltered Lisbon sisters to go to the prom, the romantic fantasies of a group of neighborhood boys threaten to come true--until all are engulfed in a stunning chain of events that will change their lives forever.

"Kassie, a smart, fun-loving single woman ..., despite her neurotic best friend Wally's ... objections, decides it's time to have a baby--even if it means doing it herself-- with a little help from a charming sperm donor ... But, unbeknownst to her, Kassie's plans go awry because of a last-minute switch that isn't discovered until seven years later-- when Wally gets acquainted with Kassie's cute--though slightly neurotic--son"--Container.

Anthony Doerr and series editor, Heidi Pitlor, select twenty stories that represent the best examples of the form published in 2018.