| Introduction — Deborah Treisman | ix |
| “Life Cycle of a Literary Genius” — E. B. White (1926) | 3 |
| “Over the River and Through the Wood” — John O’Hara (1934) | 5 |
| “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” — James Thurber (1939) | 12 |
| “Such a Pretty Day” — Dawn Powell (1939) | 18 |
| “The Weeds” — Mary McCarthy (1944) | 28 |
| “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” — J. D. Salinger (1948) | 51 |
| “Children Are Bored on Sunday” — Jean Stafford (1948) | 64 |
| “Symbols and Signs” — Vladimir Nabokov (1948) | 75 |
| “The Lottery” — Shirley Jackson (1948) | 81 |
| “The Ladder” — V. S. Pritchett (1949) | 90 |
| “The Five-Forty-Eight” — John Cheever (1954) | 104 |
| “The State of Grace” — Harold Brodkey (1954) | 119 |
| “I Live on Your Visits” — Dorothy Parker (1955) | 133 |
| “A Father-to-Be” — Saul Bellow (1955) | 140 |
| “A Summer’s Reading” — Bernard Malamud (1956) | 151 |
| “The Happiest I’ve Been” — John Updike (1959) | 159 |
| “Defender of the Faith” — Philip Roth (1959) | 175 |
| “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” — Eudora Welty (1963) | 205 |
| “The Indian Uprising” — Donald Barthelme (1965) | 211 |
| “The House of the Famous Poet” — Muriel Spark (1966) | 218 |
| “The Cafeteria” — Isaac Bashevis Singer (1968) | 227 |
| “City Lovers” –Nadine Gordimer (1975) | 243 |
| “Voices Lost in Snow” — Mavis Gallant (1976) | 254 |
| “The Book of Sand” — Jorge Luis Borges (1976) | 265 |
| “Father’s Last Escape” — Bruno Schultz (1978) | 270 |
| “The Burning House” — Ann Beattie (1979) | 275 |
| “The Shawl” — Cynthia Ozick (1980) | 290 |
| “The Bookseller” — Elizabeth Hardwick (1980) | 295 |
| “Where I’m Calling From” — Raymond Carver (1982) | 309 |
| “The First American” — Lore Segal (1983) | 325 |
| “The Red Girl” — Jamaica Kincaid (1983) | 341 |
| “Love” — William Maxwell (1983) | 352 |
| “The Way We Live Now” — Susan Sontag (1986) | 356 |
| “Emergency” — Denis Johnson (1991) | 374 |
| “The Pugilist at Rest” — Thom Jones (1991) | 385 |
| “Bullet in the Brain” — Tobias Wolff (1995) | 404 |
| “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)” — Junot Diaz (1995) | 410 |
| “People Like That Are the Only People Here” –Lorrie Moore (1997) | 415 |
| “Brokeback Mountain” — Annie Proulx (1997) | 446 |
| “The Telephone Game” — William Trevor (1998) | 471 |
| “The Third and Final Continent” — Jhumpa Lahiri (1999) | 482 |
| “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” — ZZ Packer (2000) | 501 |
| “U.F.O. in Kushiro” — Haruki Murakami (2001) | 521 |
| “Seven” — Edwidge Banticat (2001) | 536 |
| “The Courtesy” — John Berger (2002) | 548 |
| “My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age” — Grace Haley (2002) | 571 |
| “Gallatin Canyon” — Thomas McGuane (2003) | 580 |
| “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” — Sherman Alexie (2003) | 593 |
| “A Rich Man” — Edward P. Jones (2003) | 615 |
| “Chicxulub” — T. Coraghessan Boyle (2004) | 635 |
| “The Plague of Doves” — Louise Erdrich (2004) | 646 |
| “Last Evenings on Earth” — Roberto Bolano (2005) | 660 |
| “Dimension” — Alice Munro (2006) | 681 |
| “Good People” — David Foster Wallace (2007) | 707 |
| “Another Manhattan” — Donald Antrim (2008) | 714 |
| “In the South” — Salman Rushdie (2009) | 735 |
| “Old Wounds” — Edna O’Brien (2009) | 749 |
| “Midnight in Dostoevsky” — Don DeLillo (2009) | 766 |
| “The Other Place” — Mary Gaitskill (2011) | 787 |
| “Going for a Beer” — Robert Coover (2011) | 801 |
| “Tenth of December” — George Saunders (2011) | 804 |
| “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” — Nathan Englander (2011) | 829 |
| “Black Box” — Jennifer Egan (2012) | 850 |
| “An Abduction” — Tessa Hadley (2012) | 896 |
| “A Voice in the Night” — Steven Millhauser (2012) | 915 |
| “The Embassy of Cambodia” — Zadie Smith (2013) | 933 |
| “The Christmas Miracle” — Rebecca Curtis (2013) | 956 |
| “Apollo” — Chimamanda Negozi Adichie (2015) | 979 |
| “Cold Little Bird” — Ben Marcus (2015) | 990 |
| “The Midnight Zone” — Lauren Groff (2016) | 1010 |
| “Cat Person” — Kristen Roupenian (2017) | 1021 |
| “Chaunt” — Joy Williams (2018) | 1039 |
| “All Will Be Well” — Yiyun Li (2019) | 1049 |
| “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” — Jamil Jan Kochai (2020) | 1060 |
| “Visitor” — Bryan Washington (2020) | 1068 |
| “Cafe Loup” — Ben Lerner (2022) | 1087 |
| “Narrowing Valley” — Jonathan Lethem (2022) | 1102 |
| “Crown Heights North” — Rivka Galchen (2024) | 1111 |
| Acknowledgments | 1121 |
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