A love affair that destroys a young couple's marriage unfolds through the individual perspectives of the wife, the husband, and the interloper, shifting back in forth between the mid-1980s and two decades later.

"'To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time,' recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. 'They were windows into emotions I had and hadn't had, into other settings and circumstances and observations and relationships.' Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year's edition. The result is a striking and nuanced...