"The Best Australian Stories 2011" by Cate Kennedy (ed) (Black Inc, 2012)

31 stories. Like the UK (but not the US) version, the authors don't comment on their pieces.

• Duty of care - The patient of an Acute ward nurse was a teacher who enjoyed giving her corporal punishment. Though she might do some mercy killing she keeps him painfully alive
• Carrying on - An 18 y.o. boy comes home having had a little accident in the car and sleeps beside his separated mother. Next morning she gets the car mended and finds out there's been a hit-and-run, a girl comatose. A few weeks later he leaves for uni.
• Blow in - The 1st-person PoV (mother of Alice, 22) is meeting Paul, 40, who's marrying Alice the next day. Paul doesn't know that Alice is a criminal. It's a reconsiliation meeting (she doesnt like him), a meal. We learn about the mother's childhood. She's had to leave a town destroyed by fire. It's regenerating. Her husband died of a heart attack 5 years before. We learn that when Paul had returned to his wife, Alice had self-harmed, then set Paul and his wife's business alight. But the fire spread. At the end the mother's Bombe Alaska arrives, the lights are dimmed.
• Istanbul - The narrator (Porter) and Toby use Maynard's pool while his family's away (in Istanbul?). Maynard has called him a faggot. Toby tells him everybody knows. Toby leaves. Maynard can't find his clothes. He thinks of breaking a window in Maynard house to get some clothes.
• The men outside my room - The narrator's brother used to beat him. 30 years later, in a shaky relationship, he's taking his little daughter, Mary (2) to a library where she poos. He's angry with her, then apologises. He's not talked to his biological father (1000s of miles away) for 20 years. His mother, remarried, says his father spent money on boys. His brother tells him he doesn't know why he bullied the narrator. Later, we learn that the narrator divorces.
• Matter - Ranga (29, an Australian Rules footballer on his way to the first pre-season training session) sees a traffic accident. At the session he's paired with a thin young newbie who hero-worships him and is polite about out-performing him. When Ranga has the chance to harm him in a tackle he doesn't - he recalls the accident victim
• Space under the sun - Sanghmitra is a female doctor from India working in Australia, retaking her practical ultrasound exam. Her son is hours away at school. Her husband is in India, building the business (clinics for expecting woman). The equipment in India was old, the images fuzzy. When she'd had scans done, she'd seen she's had twins. The girl had died. Things are clearer now, even if mothers don't want to see.
• Where there's smoke - Nick, 9, is playing football in the back garden when she finds a young woman. She knows about him and his family, though doesn't get everything right. She knows where his father hides his cigarettes. Nick finds them, lights one and the rest of the family go to him. His father looks out of the window.
  Only 4 pages. Ends too soon but fun while it lasted.
• The sleepers in that quiet earth - The narrator (Dove) has a mother in hospital long term. Dove wants her in a care home but last time a transfer was set up her mother refused at the last moment. She reads Bronte to her mother. She's planning her own novel, featuring Ellis. There's interplay between Dove's life, Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte's life, and the new novel's plot. Who is in control of their lives?
  The most interesting piece so far. I think I'd like it more had I read Wuthering Heights
• Everybody wins on Planet Earth - Scott is the 9 y.o cousin of the narrator, 20, whose dad's taking them to a Play zone with educational pretensions. The father isn't multiculturally inclined. Little Korean kids want a particular toy in a grabber game. They fail. The narrator's father knew they would. The narrator spends 20 dollars until he gets it for them.
  Not enough about Scott.
• The road to nowhere - Ray and Pat (50), who've been together a year, set out in a Willebago. They spend their first night in a noisy camp-site, have an accident and end their holiday early.
  The first failure of the collection
• The gills of fish - A woman due to have a caesarian the next day is walking on the beach with her husband (who she feels is being neglectful) and little son. She sees beached fish trying to beathe. She has bad dreams. Next day she sees how her new baby changed colour as it changes from breathing in fluid to breathing air.
• Street sweeper - "You" (Matthew) when 14 had a dog that was run over. He was distressed, but his mother Molly (who had deadlocks, who was making jam) dealt with it well. His father was in the States with another woman. "You" is woken by a street sweeping vehicle. Father phones mother, suggesting that "you" live with him. She says it makes sense. "You" later realise she did it for sake, against her instincts. On the flight he tries the marmalade. "How sweet it is, how bitter".
  I thought at the end that the addresser might be revealed, but it's anonymous
• Forging friendship - Keira, checking Faceback, ebay etc finds Hannah, tries to contact her. At school they were close friends, planned to share a flat and become nurses. Keira lost her virginity to a boy at 15 but she loved Hannah who left her for a boy. Keira relises that to start a new story she has to get rid of the old. She looks for a new dress online. I like it.
• (Favoured by) babies - 37 foundling appears on Hampton doorsteps. For various reasons the occupiers can't have children. They keep the babies, buy baby things in distant shops. When a DNA test is forced on a couple it's found that the baby is theirs. Other couples in the same situation become more open. I like it.
• Look down with me - 3 pages. A mute boy (his first-person PoV) kills the horses of troopers who've occupied the family's house and have hung a man nearby.
• Visitors' day - A woman whose baby, now 18 months old, is being brought up by the aunty who looked after her for 18 years, is released from prison. She plans to home-school the child, never let her go. But straight away she has a drink, steals a wallet, has to pay by whoring, turns to drugs, without seeing her child.
  No.
• Shelter - 5 pages. A man (homeless? living in sheltered accomodation?0 is allowed to stay in his sister's garden while she's on holiday. There's a willow - "a dreadlocked chandelier". At the end he feels "tall and light, almost willowy".
  A vignette. No.
• Ten-day socks - A person on a silent meditation retreat worries about how to keep his socks clean.
  No.
• Shooting the fox - Gloria, a 43 year-old virgin, is about to marry Malcolm, father of one of her pupils. He shows her a fox he's shot. After they marry she lives in his tower and he tells her how he makes his living - printing child porn in the basement. Drawings, not photos. It's all from Gloria's first-person PoV and her tone is interestingly odd.
• What love tells me - James takes his son Joe, 5, to a Mahler concert. James has been a widower for a few months, and his brother killed himself in his teens. James and his wife went to concerts there. He sobs, and at the end praises Joe for being well behaved all that time. Joe helps his father home.
• The index cards - In a communal bin the narrator finds index cards written by Gladys who'd died a fortnight before. There are 3 pages of extracts from the cards (she couldn't speak, so communicated using them). There are complaints about the din caused by the narrator (but s/he didn't make a noise) and dialogue with her nurse (a male replaced her regular female). According to the cards (but Gladys was wrong about the noise) the nurse is a gay ex-junkie who steals from her.
  No
• This awful brew - 2nd person PoV. You are visiting Gav in prison. You used to work there, helping Gav. But since you've gone, Gav has started taking drug again.
  No
• Beneath the figs - Shona, a nurse, lives on a street where fig trees are attracting too many bats. The council plan to cut the trees down. Shona's neighbours on one side are Brethren. Their young daughter is pregnant. Shona's called in for a house visit. The baby (tiny with pointed ears like a bat) isn't feeding. Genetic, says the girl, Edwards disease. Shona says the baby should be in hospital. Outside "the bats ... are hanging on for grim life".
  No.
• The anniversary - A mother brings her daughter's ashes (she was killed by a drunk driver) from the bedroom to the little party in the garden. A brother arrives with a rosebush, his plan being to bury the ashes under it. In the mayhem the box opens and ashes go everywhere. The mother laughs. It's been 10 years.
  No.
• Strawberry jam - a mother brings her daughter's ashes (killed by a drunk driver) from the bedroom to the little party in the garden. A brother arrives with a rosebush, his plan being to bury the ashes under it. In the mayhem the box opens and ashes go everywhere. The mother laughs. It's been 10 years.
  No.
• Fifty years - a woman's on her deathbed after a stroke. Her husband of 50 years is beside her. The daughter arrives - it's her first-person PoV. The mother tries to withdraw and look away from her husband. The daughter thinks she might always have been disappointed with him. He jabbers on. After the mother dies, the daughter finds her diaries - more little disagreements (lack of communication) between the two of them.
• Silence 1945 - 1 page. At the end of the war a german rises from the trenches. The enemy soldiers ask if they should shoot. The German semaphores "Ich habe hunger".
• Jumping for chicken - The first-person narrator is a river tour guide. He tries to show them a big croc first rather than saving it to last. At 53 he unexpectedly became a father. The mother wanted him to move away. She left him, taking the boy. 4 years later now, she sometimes sends letter and photos. He drifts in the boat when he feels sad.
• Izzy and Ona - 2 pre-school boys and their baby sister (looked after by their grandmother) are waiting at a little airport for their mother who visits each 4 months. They find out she's been delayed and will arrive in a week.
• Home - An immigrant prof from Baghdad has just been given a house outside Sydney near a cemetery with graves from many countries. His son was tortured and killed. He often takes the train to Sydney and observes. He often walks in the cemetery and thinks. He sees a mourning woman there who reminds him of his daughter. His daughter and grandson promise to arrive soon from Indonesia, which gives his life meaning.

minor literature[s]'s guidelines state "We have an extremely low tolerance for the North American realist short story." Having read the first few stories in this collection I was beginning to worry that my tolerance limit would be reached. Then the stories began to vary stylistically. The realist vignette was perhaps the most common style.

I liked this more than the 2023 British equivalent.

Other reviews

• SJ Finn (exceptionally good are the first three to appear in the anthology ... there’s the very funny ‘Road To Nowhere’ by Russell King and the beautifully written ‘Shooting The Fox'. The weaker stories fall short perhaps for reasons of taste, but I can’t help feeling there’s a kind of malaise that creeps in to a few. They lack the arc a story needs to engage a reader or, conversely, the denseness of detail that intrigues. ‘Street Sweeper’ by Leah Swann and ‘The Gills Of Fish’ by Karen Manton come to mind. Even ‘The Anniversary’ ... lacks either the punch or the delicateness that might have saved it. . ... the collection finishes well with Sharon Kent’s ‘Jumping for Chicken’ and Catherine Cole’s ‘Home’)