Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
Story Prize winner, 2008. Wolff may be the most technically accomplished story writer of his generation; every sentence is load-bearing, no word wasted. "Bullet in the Brain" earns every move, wastes nothing, and lands with the force of a philosophical argument. His influence on MFA teaching has been enormous.
Even Wolff's biggest fans admit the ten new stories included here read weaker than the twenty-one reprinted classics around them, a scaled-down showing next to career-defining older work. The book runs long at around 400 pages, and one more reader wishes it had been trimmed, with one naming “a leaner, meaner collection at 270 rather than 370 pages” as what he'd have preferred. Individual new stories draw specific complaint for having their “feet in waters better swum by Raymond Carver” rather than sounding like Wolff's own voice, and a critic concurs that some additions “seem a touch watered down.” One reader flags a couple of plotted turns he simply never buys, admitting to “a couple that you never believe.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
