The Best American Catholic Short Stories captures twenty of the best short stories from thirteen American Catholic writers over the past seventy-five years. Spanning most of the twentieth century, the stories in this collection deal with many of the issues brought into the spotlight with Vatican II.

One ongoing area of controversy, of course, is in the very notion of Catholic fiction. What constitutes a work as "Catholic"? This new collection, with its rich variety of themes, styles, and tones, takes an important step in answering this question. Pat Schnapp and Dan McVeigh have assembled an extraordinary sampling that is unique in its subject and scope. Major contributors include Mary Gordon, Flannery O'Connor, Ron Hansen, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Richard Russo.