Best Short Story Collection 2009 — Guest Post by Larry Dark

“The Size of the World” by Joan Silber (Norton)

In 2004, Joan Silber published a book of stories, “Ideas of Heaven,” that introduced a new way of structuring a collection. A character or other element in one story, would take center stage in the next, with the last story connecting back to the first, completing the ring.

With last year’s collection “The Size of the World,” Silber returned to this form in stories that ranged from Vietnam to Mexico, Florida, Thailand, and Sicily. Silber’s generous stories often encompass the sweep of a lifetime and engage ideas such as love, faith, and fate with a truly global perspective. And the search for the connections between and among stories becomes an engaging puzzle. Her first ring of stories was a National Book Awards and Story Prize finalist. “The Size of the World” is just as good.

Larry Dark runs The Story Prize.

Ed. Note: Even though it’s billed as a novel, “The Size of the World” is really a series of interlocking stories. And yes, it’s 2008, not 2009, but that’s only a year off, and really, you probably haven’t read it yet.