I’m having a fine time reading The Best American Short Stories 2023, but as you can tell from the title of this piece, I’ve got some issues with one of the stories in the collection. As always, my intention in writing this kind of blog post is to point out these issues in a spirit of helpful criticism, not know-it-all-ness, and, of course, to hopefully demonstrate that I’ve got solid editing skills. And the issues I found don’t at all prevent enjoyment of the story, which is “My Brother William” by Danica Li and which initially appeared in The Iowa Review.
“We cried when we were separated at school and the other kids made fun of us for it.” I would insert a comma after “school” because “the other kids” is a new subject.
“Towards the end of my stint with the website I flew to go visit him.” Another comma issue: Different publications have different rules about when a comma is needed after an introductory phrase, but because the introductory phrase in this sentence is so long, I can’t help but think a comma is needed, not just wanted, after “website.”
“—consciousness becoming like the trillion bits in a kaleidoscope which every ten seconds was given a vigorous shake—” The “which” should be changed to “that” because it’s the beginning of a restrictive clause that is crucial to the meaning of the sentence.
“Yearly its staff racked in journalism awards and fellowship grants, book contracts, top prizes in the field, plum speaking engagements.” I believe “racked” should be changed to “raked.” I don’t see any definition of rack that makes sense in that sentence.
“… secretly I thought that it was because our life paths were diverging, mine taking me deeper into the real world, him taking him deeper into worlds of his own creation.” Just like there’s (correctly) “mine” before “me,” the first “him” should be changed to “his” because Li is referring there to William’s path, not to William himself.