Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of the acclaimed memoir Boy Alone, delivers a stylish first novel about a group of families in a fashionable Manhattan neighborhood wrestling with the dark realities of their lives. A book reminiscent of Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists and Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, Greenfeld's Triburbia is a bold literary tour de force in which the author renders New York City's vibrant and affluent Tribeca neighborhood as a living breathing, character, much like Armistead Maupin did with San Francisco in his acclaimed Tales of the City. Winner of the PEN/O Henry Prize, Greenfeld dazzles as a debut novelist, marking the beginning of a brilliant career in...

In a future America that feels increasingly familiar, you are your credit score. Extreme wealth inequality has created a class of have-nothings: Subprimes. Their bad credit ratings make them unemployable. Jobless and without assets, they've walked out on mortgages, been foreclosed upon, or can no longer afford fixed addresses. Fugitives who must keep moving to avoid arrest, they wander the globally warmed American wasteland. Desperate for work and food, a Subprime family has been forced to migrate east. They are soon joined in their odyssey by a writer and his family - slightly better off yet falling fast. Eventually they discover a small settlement of Subprimes who have begun an agrarian...

“As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,” writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. “It’s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.” The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world. In “Miss Lora,” Junot Díaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles...