I know, I know. I dearly apologize for bringing this up over and over again. Yet, I’m morbidly fascinated with the notion of a literary form withering into a lonely death.
And I’m sorry for the misleading headline. The short story isn’t really dead to me, despite not having written a new one in around 2 years. I still love the form and have every intention of writing more stories. Yet, I have for all practical purposes given up the yearn to publish one. I don’t really read the lit magazines, so why should I want to be published in one? Doesn’t seem ethical on a certain level.
In any case, I bring all this up because I saw an interesting post on MediaBistro’s GalleyCat, “The Short Story’s Doing Fine. Deal With It.” Wherein, many anonymous emailers (you can’t leave comments on MediaBistro blogs) are basically asserting that the short story is, in fact, six feet under in their literary world. “Valid career” go the anonymous cries, as in you can’t have one writing short stories.
Maybe it’s because all our stories suck? Have you read a new short story that blew your mind recently? Please, for the sake of the form — and maybe as a side bonus you can help resuscitate own creative juices — if you have read a superb short story in the last year, leave a note in the comments.
Comments 19
In the last year I’ve enjoyed Antonya Nelson’s “” and Chris Adrian’s “.
While I won’t quite agree that our stories suck, I am very frustrated some of the conventions used in short stories that I see getting published today. Maybe some day I’ll be brave enough to put that on my blog.
Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 1:06 pm ¶It is obviously too early in the morning for me to be dealing with html. The comment should read:
In the last year I’ve enjoyed Antonya Nelson’s “Or Else” and Chris Adrian’s “The Promise Breaker.”
While I won’t quite agree that our stories suck, I am very frustrated by some of the conventions used in short stories that I see getting published today. Maybe some day I’ll be brave enough to examine them on my blog.
Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 1:09 pm ¶Point taken about the lack of commenting features; that’s an issue that is being discussed. On the other hand, the people who choose to email anonymously COULD just send regular emails, but somehow they never do.
I’m loving Elizabeth Crane’s new collection from Akashic, by the way, and I really need to sit down this weekend and finish Ron Carlson’s One Story contribution, “Beanball.”
Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 3:30 pm ¶Gosh I liked this writeup.
I haven’t felt passion for stories in eons. And I think this is why.
I looked at the GalleyCat thing and it seems a tad disingenuous too me. The answer’s too pat. Face it, for as good as she is, most people don’t read even Alice Munro! The complaint, it seems to me, is that the short story is no longer a commercial commodity, loved by the public, paid for by publishers. So what if it’s still in high esteem in our classes? That’s not the point!
Fortunately, I did find some conflicting views out there, like this and this and this. Nice counters to GalleyCat.
Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 4:13 pm ¶Given the amount of spam my own little lowly site gets in comments, I can see over 24,000 reasons why having comments might not be a great idea.
Thanks for the pointers on stories. I’m going to check these out. And thanks for the links, Lisa. More reading for my morbid fascination.
Posted 06 Mar 2008 at 6:04 pm ¶Well, I don’t know about “superb,” but I did like Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Year’s End,” in The New Yorker in December, which I read only yesterday in the carpool line at my kids’ school. The last one I remember reading was in an inflight magazine back in October (that one wasn’t anywhere near superb, but still a welcome break from the bland magazine fare on board since I forget to bring my own reading material along).
Funny, all I read about is how Americans’ attention spans are so much shorter today, so it’s kind of baffling why the short story — seemingly tailored for short bursts of time — would be unpopular at such a time.
I think it has a lot to do with the marketing and packaging of the genre. In nonfiction, essay anthologies are selling very well, so maybe publishers need to think about marketing short story collections in the same way, even gathering them according to theme (instead of single-author) the way the nonfiction anthologies are assembled.
Posted 11 Mar 2008 at 11:11 am ¶My favorite story is Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain.” Not old, not too recent, but great.
Posted 11 Mar 2008 at 10:56 pm ¶Relating to Lisa’s post, I wonder if part of the problem isn’t the perception that the genre is “dead.” If this is all that comes to mind when people think of short stories, they’re going to assume it’s true. Americans certainly have short attention spans, but we also hate to back a loser. As for good recent stories, I’d second the Lahiri endorsement and add John Barth’s story from this year’s Best American (sorry, I don’t have the title in front of me).
Posted 12 Mar 2008 at 10:06 am ¶Not recent, but Stephen King’s Night Shift is my favorite short story collection ever, and I’d put it in the running for ‘best.’
Posted 12 Mar 2008 at 12:24 pm ¶Blood by Matthew Cheney, in “One Story”, issue 81, 2006.
Wildwood by Junot Diaz in the New Yorker Fiction Issue, 2007.
Posted 16 Mar 2008 at 7:50 pm ¶I recently read Granta’s Best of the Young American Novelists. While there were a number of duds, I did find several stand-outs:
“Passover in New Orleans”, Dara Horn–an assassination plot in Civil War New Orleans–who said lit fic can’t be thrilling?
“Valets”, Rattawut Lapcharoensap–sad, funny, bittersweet story about valets at a 1,000-seat, failing restaurant in Thailand
“The Barn at the End of Our Term”, Karen Russell–dead presidents reincarnated as horses. Need I say more?
And some other recent reads: “Bar Joke, Arizona”, One Story Issue #97 by Sam Allingham. . .”The Paperhanger” from William Gay’s collection I Hate to See the Evening Sun Go Down (creepy! creepy!). . .”A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia”, Victor Pelevin (the title says nearly says it all).
And I recently re-read some all-time favorites: “Fiesta, 1980″ by Junot Diaz and “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel.
I’ve found that that reading some great short fiction gets me back into writing it. It’s like you think you know what the form can do, then you go and read something totally different and you realize what a totally versatile and wonderful medium it is.
Posted 17 Mar 2008 at 10:34 pm ¶I loved Jim Shepard: Like You’d Understand, Anyway. The stories were so imaginative. But I understand the frustration with the short story market. It’s mainly serves as a foothold so authors can progress into more marketable items like novels. Maybe we should be more like poets. They aren’t going into it for recognition or widescale readership, just because it’s a lifestyle, and a way of viewing the world, and their calling.
Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 7:10 pm ¶Sorry to add a second comment, but I had to look up the name of this story:
“Near Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera” by Ben Fountain III. Originally published in Zoetrope and then in the 2004 Pushcart Anthology.
This story is about a grad student studying parrots in the Columbian jungle who is captured and held hostage by revolutionaries. The story crackles with life and energy.
- Armand
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 11:21 am ¶Dan Chaon’s Among the Missing — great collection of short stories.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 10:23 pm ¶Moral Disorder, Margaret Atwood; The Stories of Richard Bausch; The Night in Question, Tobias Wolff; Drown, Junot Diaz; any by Richard Yates. All these collections are exemplary – and lots to learn for our own writing.
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 12:42 am ¶I have recently discovered the pleasure of listening (not reading!) short stories from the New Yorker’s podcast.
In fact, last night I heard for the first time Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brainâ€? that was mentioned as a favorite by another commenter. It’s an amazing story and it was the perfect short-form entertainment for a long subway ride.
Like others on this thread, I don’t think the short story genre is dead. I think we need to think of a way to help stories escape from the margins.
Posted 27 Mar 2008 at 5:18 pm ¶I am unhappy that the short story is dead. How can we bring it back?
Posted 28 Apr 2008 at 3:12 pm ¶They are dead because like MFA programs themselves they are nothing more than political machinery for aspiring novelists. The people writing and editing them don’t really care about them, or even want to be writing them. No one reads them. Dead.
Posted 23 Apr 2009 at 5:36 pm ¶Ah, the horror of the modern day short story. Usually, literary mags publish only pretentious “finding yourself” stories about race and/or sexuality… not an inherently bad topic for a story, just that it’s WAY overdone. The market has all but withered up for good experimental fiction. I long for the days of the old pulp magazines… good creepy stories, etc.
So, for me, the short story isn’t DEAD. But the writers I read usually ARE.
Posted 16 Jun 2009 at 1:23 pm ¶Speak Your Mind