I finished reading several issues of One Story the other day. I tend to let them stack up and then read them all at once as if they were in a collection of short stories. Four stories caught my eye and I thought it would be good to mention them here since usually its books that get all the press (and so I can remember the authors two months from now).

Sir Fleeting by Lauren Groff was the best of those that I read. Filled with excellent turns of phrase and a story that winds through 40 years, it describes the love affair that never was between two people. I particularly thought the narrator was well drawn with a cosmopolitan sensibility that doesn’t make one like the character, but at least respect her. Given that Groff has several published books, she is worth reading more.

Flight Path by John Jodzio and Foreign Girls by Thomas Grattan were both well written and did not have those coying ephinanic I-learned-that moments at the end of stories, which can be a little tiring.  Grattan had some nice moments and left plenty unsaid, and was able to brining a story about cultural alienation of Gorgian emigrants to a close in a way that related that alienation to something most Americans have experienced.

If you haven’t checked out One Story, I recommend you do. It is a refreshing way to present short stories.