On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Though McEwan calls this work a novel, not a short story, it is a brief work, with a plot that’s both focused and sublime. McEwan has long been and remains one of the most descriptive writers in the language and can take simple events and draw them in such perfect detail that they do more than ring true: instead, we feel like they might be our own. This tale deals with a man and woman who meet in the uptight England of the early ’60s (before the Beatles, Carnaby Street and sexual revolution had transformed the culture into something we recognize today). Their wooing is stilted and uncomfortable and most of the action takes place on their climactic wedding night. It is both hilarious and tragic. I loved it.

–Sean Coakley