The Bridegroom by Ha Jin

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The Bridegroom, a collection of short stories by Ha Jin (Pantheon, 2000).

. . . Tong Guhan was a simple man, not very interested in power.  But recently he realized that if he were the vice director, he could have moved into a new apartment long ago and said to his son, "Prepare for the wedding!" and he could also have written to his daughter, "Forget veterinary medicine and come back home.  I'll get you a residence card and find you a good job here."  Obviously the solutions to both problems depended on whether his promotion would materialize in time.  These days he became anxious.  Every morning, when watering the violets, cannas, roses, and cyclamen in his tiny backyard, he'd pray in silence that today he'd be officially notified of the promotion. . . . 
--From "Alive," pp. 17-42, originally published in AGNI, Number 45 (1997). 

 

A letter was lying on Nimei's desk.  She was puzzled because the envelope did not give a return address.  The postmark showed the letter came from Harbin, but she knew nobody in that city. 

--From "Flame," pp. 126-141, originally published in The Missouri Review, Issue 20.3 (Fall 1997).  

Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett

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Ship Fever (W.W. Norton, 1996), which won the National Book Award for fiction in 1996, is a collection of eight stories by Andrea Barrett. 

When I first picked up the book, I didn't realize that I'd already read the first story, "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds."  It was originally printed in The Missouri Review, and I'd read the reprint in Best American Short Stories, 1995 (guest edited by Jane Smiley).     

My favorite stories in the collection were "The Littoral Zone" (originally published in Story), "Birds with No Feet," and the rather stunning title story, "Ship Fever."  It, like several of the other stories in the collection, weaves together fiction and scientific or historical record.

Poem: "Gate C 22" by Ellen Bass

At gate C 22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after

the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like satin ribbons tying up a gift. . . .

[Continued on the website of The Missouri Review,
where "Gate C 22" by Ellen Bass was published in 2002.]