Reading Short Fiction

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Permalink Reply by Jason Neal on September 13, 2011 at 11:28am

I think one of the most exciting writers of the 1990s was Thom Jones, who wrote only short fiction.  To my mind, his story "The Pugilist at Rest" (also the title of his first collection) is one of the best American short stories written in the last 50 years (not that I've read them all...).  Jones kind of disappeared from the literary scene a dozen years ago, but a quick Google search just revealed that he was published in Playboy last January.  I should see if I can get my hands on that...strictly for the story, naturally.

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Permalink Reply by Shann Ray on September 22, 2011 at 3:46pm

Hi All,

When I think of great short stories, all of America comes to mind, and when I think of a simply amazing region of writers I think of Montana!  How about these stars in the literary sky of Montana: James Welch, Mandy B. Smoker, Melissa Kwasny, Sandra Alcosser, Mary Jane Nealon, Richard Hugo, William Kittredge, Annick Smith.  And how about those who often write from my home town of Livingston and surrounding areas: Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, Andrea Peacock, Doug Peacock, and others. 

And then we have some stellar collections of short stories straight from Montana: Richard Ford (Rock Springs), Pete Fromm, Rick Bass, Claire Davis (Labors of the Heart is like love and power all in one, prepare to be shattered in the best way), and so many more. 

 

This panel will be fun!  Glen Chamberlain is a true artist with depth and elgance and torque to her prose.  Alan Heathcock's collection Volt is like a dark gem with lightning in the middle, and Melanie Rae Thon, from up around the Flathead area is a national treasure--her prose leaves me feeling like something heavenly and illumined came my way and helped me cope with all the darkness of the world. 

 

Specific stories I've recently loved wholeheartedly, by Melanie, Glen, and Al: "Father, Lover, Deadman, Dreamer" by Melanie, "Twin Bridges, MT" by Glen, and "Lazarus" by Al.  Those three stories break me all the way down, and remind me of the beautiful generosity we sometimes find even in the darkest or toughest places of life. 

 

Love to hear what stories you love and why. 

 

See you at the panel!

 

Shann Ray

American Masculine

www.shannray.com

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Permalink Reply by Alan Heathcock on September 23, 2011 at 2:28pm

I'm a great lover of short fiction, and have found some of the most powerful readings experiences I've ever had through short fiction.  Some of my all-time favorites, stories I come back to read again and again, are: 

 

"Indian Camp" by Ernest Hemingway

"A Circle in the Fire" by Flannery O'Connor

"The Tall Men" by William Faulkner

"Counterparts" by James Joyce

"Emergency" by Denis Johnson

"The Prophet from Jupiter" by Tony Earley

"The Five-Forty-Eight" by John Cheever

"Upon the Sweeping Flood" by Joyce Carol Oates

"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr

"Akhnilo" by James Salter

"A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison

"A Different Road" by Elizabeth Strout

"How We Fall" by Shann Ray

"Father, Lover, Deadman, Dreamer" by Melanie Rae Thon

"Tony's Story" by Leslie Marmon Silko

"A White Horse" by Thom Jones (though you're right, Jason, "The Pugilist at Rest" is a masterpiece, too)

"All The Way in Flagstaff, Arizona" by Richard Bausch

 

I could go on and on and on...  Wow, this is fun.  And I must say that as I'm making this list, I'm pulling books off of shelves because I'm now inspired to reread many of these stories.  I'm greatly looking forward to the story panel at the book fest!!!!  Hope to see folks in Montana!!  Be well!

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Permalink Reply by David Abrams on October 1, 2011 at 12:07pm

I have never snorted cocaine.

 

But if I had, I imagine it would be something like the rush I get from reading short stories: a sudden, quick blaze of light opening in my head.  The best short stories come in, rearrange our mental furniture, then make a sharp exit.  By necessity, they have to do their business with quick, compact efficiency.  Novels allow us to grow into the story, build our relationships with characters, and--even with the best novels--allow us to fall prey to distraction.  I love short fiction for its intensity, how it demands we punch a ticket for a fast ride from the first sentence, the way we speed along on the express-train of language.

 

These are the stories, collections and authors who have changed my life, lamp-posts of the short form (I had a much longer list, compiled during a 45-minute browse through my bookshelves.  It was written in small, cramped handwriting over a series of eight Post-It notes.  At some point this week, I lost that list.  So, this is a quick recreation of what I had--probably missing some influential works here):

 

Individual Stories:

"Wants" by Grace Paley

"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

"Haircut" by Ring Lardner

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway

"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence

"Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby" by Donal Barthelme

"Wait" by Roy Kesey

"Here Come the Maples" by John Updike

 

 

Entire Collections I've Loved:

Rock Springs by RIchard Ford

Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout

When We Were Wolves by Jon Billman

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane

Night Shift by Stephen King

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z. Z. Packer

The Watch by Rick Bass

Later, at the Bar by Rebecca Barry

Dubliners by James Joyce

Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist

We Are Not in This Together by William Kittredge

Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

 

Authors Whose Every Word I Cherish:

Flannery O'Connor

Raymond Carver

Anton Chekhov

Lewis Nordan

Andre Dubus

Ron Carlson

Tobias Wolff

 

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Permalink Reply by Shann Ray on October 1, 2011 at 2:59pm

Great lists David and Al!  The American short story, and the Irish, and the British, and all over the world, alive and well!  How about Say You Are One of Them by Uwem Akpan, and The Woman Lit by Fireflies by Harrison. 

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Permalink Reply by David Abrams on October 1, 2011 at 3:32pm

My lists are, quite obviously, fueled by undergraduate and graduate course loads which helps broaden the scope beyond America.  I do have to say, however, that my strongest interests lie in American short fiction.  There are still several authors I'm lacking in (or just haven't read at all).  Among them, the Akpan and Harrison collections, as well as "The Pugilist at Rest" as mentioned by Jason earlier.

 

Other authors who are, for the most part, uncharted territory for me:  John Cheever, Isaac Babel, William Trevor, George Saunders, Lorrie Moore, Deborah Eisenberg and Dan Chaon (to name just a few off the top of my head).

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Permalink Reply by Glen Chamberlain on October 2, 2011 at 10:53am

It's interesting to see the cross-hatching of authors in the lists you men have brought up, and I'd like to explore what it is in the quality of the writing of those cross-hatched authors that attracts you. Are there some universal criteria you could identify?

I've been thinking along your lines, David, about what I find so appealing in short stories--not that I don't adore novels, as well. But it seems to me that a novel has to be an earthquake, while a short story can be a tremor. The characters are shaken, and we watch these quiet little moments when their lives are shifted, their landscape, however subtly, forever altered. That doesn't mean that these tremors can't create a crack in the earth and swallow characters (and, to a degree, readers; in this regard, I think of Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" and Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge").

 

I keep thinking of analogies for why I like short stories. They're also like snapshots--not the whole picture album, or maybe more appropriately for the novel, not a motion/moving picture. For me, they have the quality of being allowed to look at someone in some place at some time, and around this frame is the open space of a page: the open space of a life. It makes the narration always a little unreliable for me, and that creates a real tension in the read.

 

And here's one more thought, though off on another tangent. As far as the constant death and just as constant resurrection of the short story goes, do you think they're having a resurgence because of the changing quality of attention audiences now have? It seems the short story is perfect for right now.

 

Okay, and one more. When is a short story a short story? For example, one of my favorite short story writers is Alice Munro, and some of those run 70 to 90 pages. Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" runs 10 - 13 pages more, and that's a novel. And "A River Runs Through It" (98 pages) is a novella.

 

Some of my favorite reads (they often become my favorite just because they're recent; I'm very fickle):

Maile Meloy's collection, "Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It"

Rick Bass's collection, "The Hermit's Story"

Lorrie Moore's collection, "Birds of America"

Shann Ray's collection, "American Masculine" (I won't have it finished by the festival, Shann, but you're a stunning writer!) 

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Permalink Reply by David Abrams on October 2, 2011 at 3:54pm

Glen,

 

I think the one quality of the stories and authors I cited that attracts me most is the way they immediately engage the reader, whether it's through syntax, dialogue, or the immediacy of action.  I want a story to catch my attention from the first sentence--if it's really good, from the first word.

 

Pulling a book at random off my shelf, here's a good example:

All weekend the two girls were calling each other Temple One and Temple Two, shaking with laughter and getting so red and hot that they were positively ugly, particularly Joanne who had spots on her face anyway.

There's enough humor and intrigue in that first sentence from Flannery O'Connor's "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" that I want to keep rolling through the story.  It's maybe not the best example, but for a random pull from the shelf, it's not bad.

 

Here's another one, this time from Richard Ford's "Optimists":

All of this that I am about to tell happened when I was only fifteen years old, in 1959, the year my parents were divorced, the year when my father killed a man and went to prison for it, the year I left home and school, told a lie about my age to fool the Army, and then did not come back.  The year, in other words, when life changed for all of us and forever--ended, really, in a way none of us could ever have imagined in our most brilliant dreams of life.

There's a lot of exposition packed into that first sentence and, in the second sentence, the hint of the general direction the story is headed.

 

And here's one--probably my most favorite opening line EVER.  It comes from "Butte as in Beautiful" by Amanda Eyre Ward (found in her excellent collection Love Stories in This Town):

It's a crappy coincidence that on the day James asks for my hand in marriage, there is a masturbator loose in the library.

How could you not keep reading after a sentence like that?

 

Update:  I found my Post-It note list of influences!  It had fallen out of my pocket in the car and wedged between the seat and the drink holder.  I did remarkably well in my recall for a guy who doesn't regularly take ginko biloba.  Here are a couple of collections I missed:

Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter

Slow Monkeys and Other Stories by Jim Nichols (a solid collection criminally overlooked from a few years ago)

Also, "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff--which I recently discovered on this very roundtable forum thanks to Jason.

 

P.S.  I see I've failed to mention four other OUTSTANDING collections released this year: the ones by Alan, Shann, Glen and Melanie.  I think they each know how much I love and admire their works, but I'll say it here publicly: their four books from 2011 are some of the finest examples of fiction craftsmanship I've read in a long, long time.  They all belong on my list of favorites.

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Permalink Reply by Shann Ray on October 3, 2011 at 9:10am

thanks Glen.  lovely questions.  I love your thoughts about a universal criteria.

for me, some of those elements include: attention to the depth of language,  subtlety and power of aesthetic approach, depth of philosophy below the writing and thinking, movement of the plot and prose, and the quality of struggle the author produces with the big questions of life, death, suffering, hope, atonement, forgiveness, justice, grace

 

see you soon!

 

shann

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Permalink Reply by Glen Chamberlain on October 3, 2011 at 1:32pm

So, Shann, a short story has to do everything a novel does in . . . what's a typical amount of time . . . 15-25 pages? Being such fine builders of short stories (thanks, David!), do we nevertheless all aspire to writing a novel? And, if so, why? Isn't craftsmanship more noticeable in a cabin than in a mansion? I think we all began writing short stories. Is building the cabin a prelude to the manse? Just wondering . . . .

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Permalink Reply by Jason Neal on October 3, 2011 at 2:32pm

Great list, David.  I'll always love "Hills Like White Elephants"—especially for the line, "Would you please please, please please please please stop talking?"

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Permalink Reply by Russell Rowland on October 7, 2011 at 3:38am

mmmm....Babel.

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