The Best American Short Stories 2022

These yearly anthologies are an unpredictable lot, subject to the tastes of their rotating guest editors, and, as audiobooks, to the skill and sensitivity of their ensemble of narrators. This year's collection falls short on several counts. The stories and their themes tilt toward the offbeat and the anticlimactic. Few have a conventional storyline, or a decisive conclusion. These are narratives that require flexibility and nuance, yet in nearly every case they are defeated by an ensemble that is limited in experience and range. Cindy Kay is the most adept and easiest on the ear. The others are to a greater or lesser degree locked in a personal style that overrides the narrative, and in several stories redefines it. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine