The finalists for this year’s Story Prize are The Angel Esmeralda by Don DeLillo (Scribner), We Others by Steven Millhauser (Knopf), and Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman (Lookout Books). The Story Prize, which annually honors the top book of short fiction, chose the three finalists from a field of 92 books from 60 different publishers. The judges for this year’s prize are Sherman Alexie, Breon Mitchell, and Louise Steinman.

 The Angel Esmeralda by Don DeLillo

Jason Rice reviewed this collection a couple of months ago:

“The fear and anger that wafts off these two stories is barnyard thick. I like/love the economy DeLillo uses with his dialogue, and at some points everything becomes static, sometimes fluent, other times, not so much. I’m carrying around this book like a Bible, or a prayer book, flipping it open to read certain parts of these two stories over and over.”


We Others by Steven Millhauser

I reviewed “The Slap” one of the stories from We Others last summer, writing, among other things, this: “Millhauser unwinds the polite paranoia of the wealthy suburbs…He shows a small town’s smug détente with the outside world unfurled by a handful of minor incidents, demasked.”


Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman

Alas, there’s no 3G1B review for Binocular Vision, but David Ulin’s review in the L.A. Times reminds me of the experience or reading books I love:

As I made my way through Binocular Vision, I kept stopping to read passages aloud to my wife, my friends, anyone who would listen. “Did you hear that?” I would ask them. “Do you understand how good this is?”