We announced here earlier in the year the inclusion of two ZYZZYVA pieces in the forthcoming Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories: respectively, Dagoberto Gilb‘s “A Little Bit of Fun Before He Died” (Issue No. 95, Fall 2012) and Karl Taro Greenfeld‘s “Horned Men” (also Issue No. 95). Today we learned ZYZZYVA made the Notable lists for both prestigious anthologies, too. Ron Carlson‘s story “Line From a Movie” (Issue No. 96, Winter 2012) won recognition in BASS, and two nonfiction works were similarly recognized in Best American Essays: Rick Barot‘s “Morandi Sonnet” (No. 96) and Luis Alberto Urrea‘s […]
Tag: Karl Taro Greenfeld
A Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays One-Two Punch (Update: And Now a Pushcart: We Hit the Trifecta)
by editor
It looks like the Fall 2012 ZYZZYVA (No. 95) has some sort of magic working for it. Earlier this year, we were thrilled to learn that a story from that issue, Karl Taro Greenfeld’s “Horned Men,” would be included in the 2013 Best American Short Stories. And today, we received a call informing us that Dagoberto Gilb’s nonfiction piece from the same issue, “A Little Bit of Fun Before He Died,” will be included in the 2013 Best American Essays. We offer our warmest congratulations to Dagoberto Gilb and Karl Taro Greenfeld. And if you don’t have the Fall 2012 […]
Mistakes Were Made, Errors Happened
by Karl Taro Greenfeld
Journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld is perhaps best known for Boy Alone, his searing, candid memoir of growing up with a severely autistic brother. In this story published in the Fall 2010 issue of ZYZZYVA, Greenfeld turns his talent for unsparing prose on a young man’s turbulent summer in Japan. The title, derived from a characteristically restrained Japanese turn of phrase, offers a dry counterpoint to the magnitude of the missteps chronicled here. What was meant to be a summer-long interlude between high school and college (sustained by a respectable job as a messenger) devolves rapidly into a debauchery of theft, drugs, and prostitution. As our confident and careless young narrator careens headlong into chaos, Greenfeld keeps the up the tension amid a dark cloud of humor.
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