The Pushcart Prize Xxxiii: Best of the Small Presses

Publishers Weekly

The 33rd Pushcart anthology demonstrates that independent presses still publish much of the world's most engaging literature. McSweeney's nominated Wells Tower's standout story, "Retreat," in which aging property developer Matthew Lattimore seeks assistance from (while simultaneously antagonizing) his brother, his carpenter and the very wilds of Maine. "Man and Wife," Katie Chase's piece from the Missouri Review, tells the story of Mary Ellen, whose parents and neighbors marry off nine-year-old girls in a world eerily similar to our own. In her AGNI essay, "Bendithion," Harrison Solow considers the "enigmatic otherworldliness" of the world-class tenor and Welsh postmaster, Timothy Evans. And Sylvester Stallone shows aspiring novelist Jeremy Collins something about the artist's life in the funny and moving Georgia Review essay, "Shadow Boxing." Poems by emerging and established poets such as Ciaran Barry, Bruce Smith and Derek Walcott pepper this must-have book for contemporary literature lovers. (Dec.)