A short-story reading challenge in 2019

Lakey · Oct 1, 2019

Two more stories from Roxane Gay's Best American anthology.

71. "Everything Is Far from Here," Christina Henríquez, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Just terribly, terribly sad. A refugee at a detention center searches and waits for her child, from whom she was separated during the trek from their home (in Mexico or Central America, in a region riven by gang violence). The stories from the border need to be told, but the people who most need to hear them are not likely reading this collection, and even if they are, they can dismiss it as an exaggerated fiction. It's all too much not an exaggerated fiction. What got to me most, really, is not even the anguish of the missing child, but the casual attitude of the immigration attorney toward the sexual violence from which the protagonist has fled. Just a visceral shudder from beginning to end.

72. "Good With Boys," Kristen Iskandrian, in Best American Short Stories 2018
A smart and compassionate move by Gay, to choose something light and humorous to follow the gut punch of Henríquez's story. A boy-crazy middle-schooler (unspecified, but probably 5th or 6th grade) spends a museum field trip with her class angling to get close to a boy she has a crush on; she is thwarted by the boy’s mother, a chaperone for the trip, and by the boy’s evident preference for another boy in the class. A very sweet story.

73. "Control Negro," Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Something about this story rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it shares a certain flavor of choir-preaching with the Henríquez story; the readers who need to be convinced of the reality of the kind of bias recounted in this story won’t be moved by it. Perhaps it suffers from that even more than the Henríquez story, because while that story could have been a recounting of true facts, this one has a bit of an improbable premise: a black professor gets a married student pregnant, and then secretly shapes and monitors the child’s entire life, ensuring he has the same advantages and experiences as the “Average Caucasian Male.” The purpose is an experiment; the child is a “control” in the experimental sense, to prove that a black kid whose upbringing is indistinguishable from that of the Average Caucasian Male is nevertheless hobbled by systemic racism and individual bias. Anyone likely to enjoy this story already knows this is true; the creepy conceit of the experiment certainly won’t make it more plausible to the skeptical.

—

That leaves me with 27 stories to go and 13 weeks left in the year. I can still get to 100 but it's going to take a bit of discipline to keep up the pace, especially when I finish this anthology. And I'm already thinking about how to modify my goals for next year -- like setting a specific goal for stories written in the past 5 years or 10 years.

:e2coffee:

_______________________

Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.

Chris P · Oct 2, 2019

Lakey said:
—

That leaves me with 27 stories to go and 13 weeks left in the year. I can still get to 100 but it's going to take a bit of discipline to keep up the pace, especially when I finish this anthology. And I'm already thinking about how to modify my goals for next year -- like setting a specific goal for stories written in the past 5 years or 10 years.

_______________________

Never fear, Lakey! The 2019 Best American Short Stories came out this week, and although not yet posted for pre-order on Amazon, the 2019 Best American Non-Required Reading should be out soon. The 2020 Pushcart Prize is avqilqble for pre-order and is out in early December.

I heartily agree with your assessment of the three stories you posted. Control Negro I thought had the greatest potential, but missed the mark somewhat, but I'm not sure why. This cartoon from a few years ago I thought really explained white privilege well. Again, the people who need to read it probably won't.

Tocotin · Oct 5, 2019

Lakey said:
73. "Control Negro," Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Something about this story rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it shares a certain flavor of choir-preaching with the Henríquez story; the readers who need to be convinced of the reality of the kind of bias recounted in this story won’t be moved by it. Perhaps it suffers from that even more than the Henríquez story, because while that story could have been a recounting of true facts, this one has a bit of an improbable premise: a black professor gets a married student pregnant, and then secretly shapes and monitors the child’s entire life, ensuring he has the same advantages and experiences as the “Average Caucasian Male.” The purpose is an experiment; the child is a “control” in the experimental sense, to prove that a black kid whose upbringing is indistinguishable from that of the Average Caucasian Male is nevertheless hobbled by systemic racism and individual bias. Anyone likely to enjoy this story already knows this is true; the creepy conceit of the experiment certainly won’t make it more plausible to the skeptical.

I thought about this a lot, and I think you put it very well – it's that the experiment is unnecessary, because the theory it seeks to prove has already been proven, so that the idea is double creepy...

I read another Tokyo tale, Izumi Kyōka's "Night Patrol". It was a strange, disjointed story which started out as if the main character were to be a policeman named Hatta, a nasty, automaton-ish figure who does his job by the book, without any compassion; then the story switches to Kō, a beautiful young woman he's in love with (and who is in love with him, eek). It turns out that Kō is an orphan, and the uncle who is caring for her was in love with her mother. He is raising Kō so that she lacks for nothing, but there is one thing he will never let her do, and that's marrying for love – it's how he wants to take his revenge on her mother. He enjoys tormenting Kō, and chooses to tell her about his motives one winter night, when they are on their way home, walking along the river. It ends badly for him, as he ends up in the water; but it ends badly for Hatta also, because he jumps in to save him ("it's my duty") and drowns. It's not clear whether the uncle lived or not, I think not, because Hatta could not swim (yeah, he says "it's my duty" to his beloved Kō, who is trying to stop him). I do hope the uncle died, so that Kō can marry whomever she wants next time... she is probably better off without her policeman.

Kyōka is known as a great stylist and the language is indeed beautiful and vivid – it was evident even to my untrained eye; he's difficult to read though, because he's still using classical Japanese, unlike many other late Meiji period writers. I was a bit startled at how old-fashioned and melodramatic the whole story was, but it did whet my appetite for more Kyōka. I have always thought he was more of an intellectual type and that reading him required to be familiar with Chinese classics etc., but this story has such a strong whiff of Edo literary tradition that his writing might be right up my alley.

I've also been rereading The Petty Demon, a novel by Fyodor Sologub, and my edition contains also a few short stories, so I read two of them. One is "Light and Shadows" – it might have been translated to English, since it seems to be famous – the other is "The Worm". They are somewhat similar in that they are both sad, pessimistic, highly symbolic, and about sensitive children and obsessions. The main character of "Light and Shadows" is a schoolboy named Volodya, a quiet, charming boy, who lives alone with his mother, a widow, and an old servant. One day he finds a tiny booklet about making hand shadows, and he becomes completely obsessed with it, to the point of neglecting his studies. His mother notices he obsession and tries to cure him of it, only to succumb to the lure of shadows herself. The second story, "The Worm", resonated with me very strongly. It's about a cheerful little schoolgirl Vanda, who lives far away from her family with other girls like her, at a house of a strict lady who takes in boarders. One day Vanda, overjoyed at having received a good mark at school, breaks a favorite bowl of the rude, coarse master of the house. He wants to beat her, but she hides away, so he yells that a huge worm will find its way into her mouth and eat her inside. Little Vanda starts thinking about the worm, starts having nightmares, then falls ill and slowly wastes away, convinced that the worm is indeed inside her, surrounded by people who only laugh and tease her and show her no compassion whatsoever until it is too late. (Sologub never mentions her nationality, but it's evident that she's from a persecuted ethnic minority and it adds an extra layer to the story.) Both stories are beautifully written and very atmospheric, but it is the latter one that made a lasting impression on me; the desperate loneliness of a child forced to live in a foreign place, without anyone to talk to about her fears, childish and irrational as they might be, but no less damaging and serious, and all that in the middle of winter – it was intense, and believable, and absolutely heart-rending. At last the boy from "Light and Shadows" had a close and trusting relationship with his mother.

I really need to read a happy story now...

:troll

--------
1. "Ginza Journal" by Seki Kenshi, 1882. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
2. "Kong Yiji" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
3. "The Lifted Veil" by George Eliot. 1856. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
4. "Medical Training" by Tazawa Inabune, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
5. "The Good Deaths, part II", by Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2014.
6. "A Madman's Diary" by Lü Xun, 1918. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
7. "Mr Salary" by Sally Rooney, reprinted in Irish Times, 2017.
8. "Brother Jacob" by George Eliot, 1864. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
9. "After the Ball" by Leo Tolstoy, 1903. Kindle edition, 2014.
10. "A Big Sake Cup" by Kawakami Bizan, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
11. "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, 1861. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
12. "Medicine" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
13. "Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa May Alcott, 1873. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
14. "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, 1995.
15. "Night Patrol" by Izumi Kyōka, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
16. "Light and Shadows" by Fyodor Sologub, 1894. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
17. "The Worm" by Fyodor Sologub, 1896. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.

PiaSophia · Oct 8, 2019

I LOVE short stories (reading and writing them) and I saw this thread a while ago. Thinking that 2019 is ending anyway I wasn't going to respond to it. But now I decided to see what short stories I've read this year just for fun. So here goes!

1. White Nights - Fyodor Dostoevsky (1848)
2. Bobok - Fyodor Dostoevsky (1873)
3. Cell One - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2007)
4. Imitation - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
5. A Private Experience - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2004)
6. Ghosts - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
7. On Monday of Last Week - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2007)
8. Jumping Monkey Hill - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006)
9. The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
10. The American Embassy - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
11. The Shivering - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
12. The Arrangers of Marriage - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
13. Tomorrow Is Too Far - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006)
14. The Headstrong Historian - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2008)
15. A Nervous Breakdown - Anton Chekhov (1889)
16. The Black Monk - Anton Chekhov (1893)
17. Anna Round the Neck - Anton Chekhov (1895)
18. The Birthday of the Infanta - Oscar Wilde (1891)
19. The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde (1887)
20. The Devoted Friend - Oscar Wilde (1888)
21. The Fisherman and His Soul - Oscar Wilde (1891)
22. The Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde (1888)
23. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime - Oscar Wilde (1891)
24. The Model Millionaire - Oscar Wilde (1887)
25. The Nightingale and the Rose - Oscar Wilde (1888)
26. The Portrait of Mr. W.H. - Oscar Wilde (1889)
27. The Remarkable Rocket - Oscar Wilde (1888)
28. The Selfish Giant - Oscar Wilde (1888)
29. The Sphinx Without a Secret - Oscar Wilde (1887)
30. The Star-Child - Oscar Wilde (1891)
31. The Young King - Oscar Wilde (1891)
32. An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street - J.S. Le Fanu (1853)
33. No. 1 Branch Line, The Signalman - Charles Dickens (1866)
34. Mrs. Zant and the Ghost - Wilkie Collins (1887)
35. Reality or Delusion? - Mrs. Henry Wood (1874)
36. The New Pass - Amelia B. Edwards (1873)
37. The Body-Snatcher - Robert Louis Stevenson (1884)
38. What Was It? - Fitz-James O'Brien (1859)
39. The Real Right Thing - Henry James (1900)
40. "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad!" - M.R. James (1904)
41. In Kropfsberg Keep - Ralph A. Cram (1895)
42. The Lost Ghost - Mary E. Wilkins (1903)

Tocotin · Oct 10, 2019

PiaSophia said:
I LOVE short stories (reading and writing them) and I saw this thread a while ago. Thinking that 2019 is ending anyway I wasn't going to respond to it. But now I decided to see what short stories I've read this year just for fun. So here goes!

17. Anna Round the Neck - Anton Chekhov (1895)

Aw, this is one of my favorite short stories ever!

I got lucky – I got a happy story this time. "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a thoroughly lovely tale of Sylvia, who lives with her grandma on a little farm surrounded by forests and general wilderness. Little Sylvia – I think she is about nine years old, no more than twelve – introduces herself as "Sylvy" and generally doesn't talk much. She loves the farm, the grandma, the stubborn cow, the birds... she loves everything (and I love her). One day she meets a young ornithologist, who wanders the forests looking for the elusive white heron... I won't spoil the story. I adore everything about it.

Then I read two more stories by Lü Xun, "Tomorrow" and "An Incident". I liked the former, although it was, again, a horribly depressing one; it's about a poor, young widow, whose little son falls ill. No, I won't spoil it – but perhaps I already have?... (I liked the portrayal of a poor neighborhood, though – there was some brightness in it.) The latter one was barely a sketch; the narrator describes a rickshaw accident. There is a bit of optimism in this story; I guess Lü Xun had some hopes for the new China after the fall of the Qings.

:troll

--------
1. "Ginza Journal" by Seki Kenshi, 1882. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
2. "Kong Yiji" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
3. "The Lifted Veil" by George Eliot. 1856. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
4. "Medical Training" by Tazawa Inabune, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
5. "The Good Deaths, part II", by Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2014.
6. "A Madman's Diary" by Lü Xun, 1918. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
7. "Mr Salary" by Sally Rooney, reprinted in Irish Times, 2017.
8. "Brother Jacob" by George Eliot, 1864. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
9. "After the Ball" by Leo Tolstoy, 1903. Kindle edition, 2014.
10. "A Big Sake Cup" by Kawakami Bizan, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
11. "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, 1861. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
12. "Medicine" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
13. "Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa May Alcott, 1873. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
14. "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, 1995.
15. "Night Patrol" by Izumi Kyōka, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
16. "Light and Shadows" by Fyodor Sologub, 1894. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
17. "The Worm" by Fyodor Sologub, 1896. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
18. "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, 1886. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
19. "Tomorrow" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
20. "An Incident" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.

Lakey · Oct 16, 2019

After saying I would have to keep up the intensity to make it to 100 by the end of the year, I didn’t read any stories at all for two weeks. Oops. Here are two more stories from Roxane Gay's Best American anthology.

74. "The Brothers Brujo," Matthew Lyons, in Best American Short Stories 2018
This story is not for me — it’s very violent and at no point in it did I have any idea what was going on. Two boys suffer at the hands of an abusive father (hand, I suppose I should say, as he lost one arm and both legs in Vietnam). One of the boys has some kind of magical power? That the father exploits for some kind of ritual?? That might have to do with bringing the dead back to life??? I have no idea. The story ends with a house full of corpses and the implication that there are more killings to come. I’m sure it is a good story with a strong allegorical point to make but it’s all lost on me.

75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018
As much as I disliked the previous story, I enjoyed this one, a very sweet tale that turns the stereotypical immigrant narrative on its head. An Iranian man, a free spirit, an itinerant musician, laments his strained relationship with his American-raised daughter, who works in tech and is driven and practical. He longs for her to be freer, to take more joy in life; she is embarrassed by what she perceives as his indolence. Staying at the YMCA, he befriends another immigrant with grown children, an Indian man, and they form a bond as they talk over what it’s like to have been in the US for decades and still not be perceived as successful. Ah, just a lovely story, really. I’ll add it to my favorites.

:e2coffee:

_______________________

Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.

Lakey · Oct 27, 2019

For those of you still looking to finish out your 2019 challenges, here is another resource: The New Yorker fiction podcast, which features famous authors reading and then discussing the stories of other famous authors. I haven’t tried to listen to this yet; I suspect some authors are better at reading than others are.

Meanwhile, I’m moving along in Best American:

76. "Items Awaiting Protective Enclosure," Téa Obreht, in Best American Short Stories 2018
A near future in which elk are all but extinct and humans commit themselves to burial in pods that fertilize the growth of new plant life. Oddly constructed, with a brief framing narrative that takes place “almost thirty years later” and seems superfluous, and of which I certainly missed the point entirely; also in second person, again for no reason I can discern.

77. "The Baptism," Ron Rash, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Pretty straightforward tale about conscience or ethics in a western setting.

78. "Suburbia!," Amy Silverberg, in Best American Short Stories 2018
I quite like this story. It reminded me a bit of one of my favorites from earlier in the year (see below), “The Sinkhole,” by Joyce Li, in that it is a fairly straightforward family tale with this evocative bit of magical realism woven in. A teenage girl is urged by her father to leave home, which she does after high-school graduation. Her father also urges her not to come back, not in a malevolent way, but she does anyway, and finds her home shrunk to the size of a small dollhouse. It’s not a subtle metaphor, but it’s a pleasing one.

79. "The Prairie Wife," Curtis Sittenfeld, in Best American Short Stories 2018
Aw, what a sweet story. A woman reminisces about her first girlfriend, who is now an Internet personality famous for wholesome instagram posts about her apple-pie baking Christian family. The woman is bitter about her ex-lover’s apparent hypocrisy, but when she watches a TV interview she learns that there is quite a bit more depth and substance to The Prairie Wife than she thought. This realization opens up a very touching strain of regret. Oddly enough this reminded me of a story I wrote recently, in which a young housewife in post-war Brooklyn experiences a surprising regret over having rebuffed the advances of a schoolmate some years before. They are not exactly the same theme, but there’s some relationship in theme-space that made me feel a little proud of my story, even though it’s received nothing but Rs so far.

80. "Whose Heart I Long to Stop with the Click of a Revolver," Rivers Solomon, in Best American Short Stories 2018
A woman reunites with a daughter she had released to foster care as a baby. A sad story about broken people.

:e2coffee:

_______________________

Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.

mrsmig · Oct 31, 2019

I've been reading so much non-fic lately (especially nature essays) that I fell off the short story wagon for a while. But I read one this morning, by AW's own lizmonster, that's both appropriate for this 31st of October and a delightful (and free!) read. Here's the link: About Time by Elizabeth Bonesteel

I'm about ten days out from making an overseas trip, so I've been happily assembling a list of books to download to my e-reader. A cousin just published her first short story in a new anthology called From A Cat's View Vol. II: Stories Told By The Cats Who Lived Them so I've done the proper family thing and bought a copy. It may be a little precious but maybe it'll serve as an amuse bouche break from the longer books I'm planning to read on my various flights.

My count to date is: 62.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)

Chris P · Nov 2, 2019

I have recently added the 2019 Best American Short Stories, and will get into them once I'm finished with the memoir I'm currently reading. Looking forward to this!

PiaSophia · Nov 2, 2019

Lakey said:
For those of you still looking to finish out your 2019 challenges, here is another resource: The New Yorker fiction podcast, which features famous authors reading and then discussing the stories of other famous authors. I haven’t tried to listen to this yet; I suspect some authors are better at reading than others are.

Thanks for this one!

I just finished an Edgar Allan Poe short story collection. Liked some, disliked others. Most of them were spooky and terrifying, just my taste!
Also, one of my friends read one of my short stories and she told me the story reminded her of The Tell-Tale Heart. I had just read that one for the first time ever. I was so surprised! And honored, but also surprised. A little spooky sidenote.

43. Manuscript Found in a Bottle - Edgar Allan Poe (1833)
In Manuscript Found in a Bottle, Poe tells an interesting tale of a man on the sea who finds himself in horrible circumstances. A good starter!
44. Ligeia - Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
In Ligeia, a man beautifully revisits the love he has for his deceased wife, only to learn that she maybe wasn't dead after all... I loved this story so much for its beautiful choice of words and its harrowing plot. It might be my favorite story of this entire collection.
45. The Man That Was Used Up - Edgar Allan Poe (1839)
The Man That Was Used Up didn't really do it for me. It was a little too political and I didn't get the references before I looked them up online (although I must add, I like the way Poe went all sarcastic and satirical on this one).
46. The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe (1839)
The Fall of the House of Usher was eerie and well-written. I liked it a lot! I could see the Ushers dying right in front of me. This is the horror I bought this book for. Yes!
47. William Wilson - Edgar Allan Poe (1839)
I liked William Wilson for its deeper meaning. Wilson tried to kill an exact copy of himself, as he thought someone was haunting and taunting him. It turns out to be nothing like he expected, which makes it painfully true to humanity's view of ourselves.
48. The Man of the Crowd - Edgar Allan Poe (1840)
In The Man of the Crowd, Poe shows us just how easy it is to get lost in the company of a lot of people.
49. The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Edgar Allan Poe (1841)
The Murders in the Rue Morgue is not so much a horror story (although the description of the crime is indeed bloody and horrific), but more a detective story. Other than the lengthy introduction about the importance of analytics, this was a fun and interesting read.
50. A Descent into the Maelström - Edgar Allan Poe (1841)
A Descent into the Maelström felt similar to Manuscript Found in a Bottle. About surviving nature's horrors while one shouldn't have survived them. A fun read.
51. Eleonora - Edgar Allan Poe (1841)
I liked reading Eleonora, while Poe really got out there to find the most beautiful words and ways to describe the love between the narrator and his cousin. It was a sweet story, a nice way to mix things up in this collection!
52. The Oval Portrait - Edgar Allan Poe (1842)
The Oval Portrait was a very short story, and it had something dark and funny to it. I liked this one, and I was pleased to read that Oscar Wilde was inspired by it to write his fantastic The Picture of Dorian Gray. It shows the fragility of life, and also the absurdity of what was expected of women regarding their relationship to their husband in those ages.
53. The Masque of the Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe (1842)
The Masque of the Red Death was a thrilling read. It builds up nicely, with the vivid details of the different rooms and the strange ebony clock. And when the story unravels... that's when the good stuff happens.
54. The Pit and the Pendulum - Edgar Allan Poe (1842)
The Pit and the Pendulum for some reason didn't succeed in keeping my attention like some of Poe's other stories can. Yes, it's graphic and describes horrible things, but I kind of missed a deeper meaning to it.
55. The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
The Tell-Tale Heart is amazingly written and shows just how far a human can go to take certain measures--only to come back from it...
56. The Gold-Bug - Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
In The Gold-Bug, Poe shows quite a few racist remarks, which made me dislike the story a lot. By making Jupiter (the African-American houseboy in this story) speak with double tongue and bad grammar, he insinuates white supremacy. Yikes. I did like the idea of deciphering a cryptogram to find a valuable treasure, but this story feels too wrong to like it because of the way Poe portrayed Jupiter.
57. The Black Cat - Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
The Black Cat I really liked. It was scary and showed the terrifying side that humans can have. Also: I liked the ending. Good for him.
58. The Purloined Letter - Edgar Allan Poe (1844)
I didn't quite enjoy The Purloined Letter. My mind kept drifting off, and to be completely honest I found this one a little boring. More detective stuff (although not nearly as twisted and exciting as The Murders in the Rue Morgue), more talk about analytics... This one just wasn't for me.
59. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar was gory and terrible and unbelievable. I loved it.
60. The Cask of Amontillado - Edgar Allan Poe (1846)
The Cask of Amontillado was so-so. Not a bad story (and yes, I know it is a famous one), but also not one that will stick with me for a long time. I think the writing felt somewhat rushed to me. Maybe I didn't catch it in the right time.
61. Hop-Frog - Edgar Allan Poe (1849)
This collection concludes with Hop-Frog. A tale about the consequences human terror can have. It's a nice one, with all its horrificness and terror.

Paul Lamb · Nov 2, 2019

It's an odd thing. I write short stories. And I certainly can read short stories. But something disconnects when I try to read a collection of short stories. I just can't seem to sustain my interest. I have a collection of stories by Grace Paley sitting unfinished on my shelf. Same with one by Raymond Carver (I still don't get what's so great about his stuff). I force myself to read the stories, and each one is good, even great, but I just can't seem to finish them.

I think I need the lengthy plot and commitment of a novel-length story to get me back in my reading chair day after day. Maybe my reading goal for the rest of this year is to finish the Paley and Carver collections (and the one by Alex Mindt I'm currently struggling through).

Lakey · Nov 2, 2019

PiaSophia, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Poe stories. I read some of those same stories early in the year, back in January and February, and wrote about them here in this thread — if you want to look back and see.

Paul Lamb, we had some conversations on this thread earlier in the year about reading single-author collections and how it can be saturating. I read a Flannery O’Connor collection in one go and decided that it had been a mistake to approach her that way. I’m now prepared sometimes to approach single-author collections as sweets jars to dip into occasionally. You mention Grace Paley — I love her writing, and I read Little Disturbances of Man all in one go a few years ago, but I’ve been taking Enormous Changes at the Last Minute much more slowly, just picking it up when I’m in the mood for Paley and reading or at most two stories. I wonder if you’re getting in your own way by looking at short story collections as things you have to force yourself through and finish.

Okay, back to my challenge: I read the last story in Best American Short Stories 2018:

81. "What a Terrible Thing it Was," Esme Weijun Wang, in Best American Short Stories 2018
A pretty sad story about mental illness and being Chinese American. I appreciated the intersection of these two disparate topics, either of which is the kind of thing one writes a short story about, but which you don’t often see blended into one story.

I feel like I’ve read another story too, but I can’t dredge it up, so maybe it was something I started and didn’t finish. I have several anthologies, collections, and journals beside my bed, the ever-present New Yorker in the bathroom, and open browser tabs with dozens more stories waiting for me to read. If I had just a little more discipline I could read twice as many stories!

:e2coffee:

_______________________

Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.

Chris P · Nov 3, 2019

I started on the (just out!) 2019 Best American Short Stories.

"The Era," by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Taking place in the post-apocalyptic world where babies are pre-birth engineered based on the parents' social status, and where all that counts is brutal honesty, Ben becomes addicted to some kind of injectable controlled substance called Good. He comes in contact with Leslie, who has "scanned compatible" with Ben. Leslie's family invites him over for his birthday, during which he has his first taste of cake and learns the family is a throwback, adhering to the previous era and its norms. I'm not really sure what the author was getting at with this one.

mrsmig · Nov 4, 2019

Chris P, that anthology is on my "to buy" list for my upcoming trip.

Speaking of, since I finished my most recent book, I went ahead and started the anthology I mentioned in my last post: From A Cat's View Vol. II: Stories Told By the Cats Who Lived Them. On the up side, thus far the only story that was overly precious was the editor's own - the rest have managed to avoid making the narrating cat adorable. On the downside, a lot of the stories could have used a stronger editorial hand, but given the editor's own story (which is far and away the least polished), that's not surprising.

What is surprising is the number of SF cat stories. I expected horror, fantasy and even the occasional twee one, but not the number of dystopian or Cats In Space tales that I've read thus far. None of them have bowled me over, but they've been entertaining. I'm about halfway through, with nine stories read, so I'm adjusting my count accordingly.

My count to date is: 71.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)

PiaSophia · Nov 4, 2019

Paul Lamb said:
It's an odd thing. I write short stories. And I certainly can read short stories. But something disconnects when I try to read a collection of short stories. I just can't seem to sustain my interest. I have a collection of stories by Grace Paley sitting unfinished on my shelf. Same with one by Raymond Carver (I still don't get what's so great about his stuff). I force myself to read the stories, and each one is good, even great, but I just can't seem to finish them.

I think I need the lengthy plot and commitment of a novel-length story to get me back in my reading chair day after day. Maybe my reading goal for the rest of this year is to finish the Paley and Carver collections (and the one by Alex Mindt I'm currently struggling through).

Have you tried reading the short stories in short spaces of time you have in between life? When you're commuting, when you have about half an hour left before you have an appointment, right before going to bed when you know you want to read some but don't feel like reading a novel, etc...? I feel like short stories are perfect for that, especially because you can easily read a novel as well next to it.

Lakey said:
PiaSophia, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Poe stories. I read some of those same stories early in the year, back in January and February, and wrote about them here in this thread — if you want to look back and see.

Oh, thank you, I will go back and see! Just not right now, as dinner's waiting for me, but some time later.

mrsmig · Nov 10, 2019

Chris P, that anthology is on my "to buy" list for my upcoming trip.

Continuing with From A Cat's View Vol. II: Stories Told By the Cats Who Lived Them. I've read seven more stories and have two to go, so I'll probably finish it tonight.

As with most anthologies, the book is something of a mixed bag, but what is truly irritating is that these stories appear to have been slapped into the collection without any editing or even proofing. The one I was reading last night had the potential to be interesting, but I kept being pulled out of the narrative by the multiple sentence fragments (not for effect; just sloppy editing) and the consistent use of "lie" when the context called for "lay," e.g. "But the cemetery walls deferred morning, and the monument-spiked lot lie in deep blue dark." At first I thought it was just a momentary lapse out of past tense into present, but it kept happening throughout the story and it made me crazy.

I've picked up 2019 Best American Short Stories (along with the latest Stephen King and a collection of essays about animals) to keep me occupied in airports and planes during my upcoming trip.

My count to date is: 78.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)

Chris P · Nov 23, 2019

"Natural light" by Kathleen Alcott

The unnamed MC and narrator visits an art gallery only to find a picture of her now-dead mother featured among an artist's collection. Unaware that her mother had ever posed--and the picture, although never described fully, seems to be of a disturbing scene--she pings her father for information he is cagey about giving, then tracks down the photographer. I really wish I had been able to focus on this story amid a bunch of distractions (it took me three days to read this!) as it seems to have a beautiful structure and writing beyond the story of a woman coming to terms with the private life of someone she thought she knew. I think I've also identified a dominant genre of current writing: a present-day event around which history and backstory are presented to tell the whole story. I seem to be seeing a lot of this lately, which isn't bad by any means. Just my analytical little mind crunching data.

"The Great Interruption: The story of a famous story of old Port William and how it ceased to be told" by Wendell Berry

While fishing, young Billy Gibbs climbs a tree to get a better look at a mysterious car parked in a field. He gets the better look he wants, all right, of the local wannabe politician Forrest La Vere and an Unknown Lady, shall we say, "campaigning" together. The branch snaps, and a surprised Billy falls onto the very surprised La Vere and his running mate. But as "One mind, and a boy's mind at that, finally cannot contain such a story," the tales grew taller from there. I really appreciated Berry's understated humor and whimsy of this story, which had a delightfully classic feel. I've been aware of Berry's poetry, but hadn't encounters his prose before. I'll have to check out his other stuff.

"No more than a bubble" by Jamel Brinkley

Two Harvard guys travel to a Brooklyn house party intent on scoring with two local ladies they meet at the party. Well written and atmospheric, I never figured out the "bubble" references, and although I figured out Claudius's issue, I'm not sure I can describe how the story connected all the parts.

mrsmig · Nov 24, 2019

Ooo, Chris P - we're at about the same place in 2019 Best American Short Stories!

I finished the cat anthology and started the 2019 Best on my flights home. I didn't expect the first story, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's "The Era," to stick with me as much as it has. Like Chris P, I'm not sure what the author was getting at in this dystopic-feeling piece about a teenager's struggles. However, I was intrigued by the way he weaponized the popular therapy communication template of "when you say/do ____, I feel ____."

I enjoyed the moodiness of Kathleen Alcott's "Natural Light" and the somewhat bittersweet humor of Wendell Berry's "The Great Interruption" (I won't synopsize these since Chris P has already provided nicely written ones).

Jamel Brinkley's "No More Than a Bubble," about two young men trying to score at a college party, was interesting but I felt it went on too long. Another entry into the dystopian-future category, Deborah Eisenberg's "The Third Tower," involves a girl sent to an institution to cure her of her "word stabilization" problems. Some of the language is gorgeous, but as the story progressed I felt a bit lost - there's little grounding backstory, and the shifts into the doctor's POV felt jarring.

I really enjoyed "Hellion" by Julia Elliott - in fact, with its bouncy narrative and stream of food references (the engaging tomboy main character is nicknamed Butter), it's made it into my list of favorites.

I skipped ahead to read Ursula K. Le Guin's "Pity and Shame," the story of a woman stranded in a mining town who is looking after a man being badly injured in a cave-in. I'm a big Le Guin fan and the construction of the story, with its dual protagonists, doesn't disappoint...but it just seemed to end without really coming to a conclusion. I wanted so much to like it more, since it was one of the last stories Le Guin wrote.

My count to date is: 87.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)
7. "Hellion" by Julia Elliott (Best American Short Stories 2019)

Chris P · Nov 24, 2019

mrsmig, I agree about the Bubble story going on too long. My sweet spot for stories, both reading and writing, is consistently at 10 pages. Long enough to get into it, but not so long too much extra baggage gets added on.

Also, were you initially confused by how much Claudius seemed to suddenly change in the story? He was the leader until they leave the party with Iris and Sybil, then his sudden pulling back and Benito's emergence was out of character. Based on what I think was going on with Claudius, I'm not convinced he would have put himself in the situation he did no matter how much in denial he might have been. What did you think?

mrsmig · Nov 25, 2019

Chris P said:
mrsmig, I agree about the Bubble story going on too long. My sweet spot for stories, both reading and writing, is consistently at 10 pages. Long enough to get into it, but not so long too much extra baggage gets added on.

Also, were you initially confused by how much Claudius seemed to suddenly change in the story? He was the leader until they leave the party with Iris and Sybil, then his sudden pulling back and Benito's emergence was out of character. Based on what I think was going on with Claudius, I'm not convinced he would have put himself in the situation he did no matter how much in denial he might have been. What did you think?

I was, indeed, confused. I didn't think his character rang true. I found it difficult to engage with any of the characters in the story, to be honest.

Chris P · Nov 25, 2019

"Hellion" by Julia Elliot

I liked this story too. Slice of rural Southern (and I'm assuming poor) life, coming of age and awakening sexuality. I loved the tension between Butter and Alex. Very much how it was at that age.

I gave up on "The Third Tower" by Deborah Eisenberg about halfway through. There just wasn't enough meat to the story to hold my interest.

"Bronze" by Jeffery Eugenides

Eugene, an aspiring poet and flamboyantly dressed in white fur coat and Elton John sunglasses, meets Kent, an older gay man on the train from New York to Providence. The story is written competently enough, but I had to wade through the "I've read tons of these kinds of stories lately" waters to get to the interesting parts--it's worth reading, though could have made its point sooner.

"Protozoa" by Ella Martinsen Gorham

Middle schooler Noa ("Noa-Protozoa") fools around briefly one afternoon with Paddy, a boy from her class, only to that evening have Paddy rap a suggestive rhyme about her on his popular social media account. This sets in motion a complicated chain reaction of teen social-media politics. Having raised two girls and a boy in the MySpace era of social media, this story brought me back, and I was touched by the ending.

"Seeing Ershadi," by Nicole Krauss

Lots going on in this one: The narrator is a ballerina who one night sees a captivating movie starring an Iranian actor named Homayoun Ershadi, who in the film is trying to buy off someone to bury him after his suicide (the description of the film does indeed make it sound like an awesome, arty flick!). On a trip to Japan, the narrator thinks she catches a glimpse of the actor, only to find he's vanished when she runs after him. Turns out, her friend Romi had an almost identical experience with the same actor after seeing the same film. The ending of the story left me firmly in the "huh?" but I liked the story nonetheless.

ETA: Turns out it's a real movie: Taste of Cherry on IMDB

Lakey · Nov 30, 2019

ChrisP and mrsmig, I’m enjoying your discussions of the newest Best American. Thanks for sharing that here.

I have fallen terribly off the pace for reaching 100 — it’s been a busy couple of months and I’m running out of time now to meet both my short-story reading and book-reading goals for 2019. I have to buckle down in the next month! Here are a few since the last time I checked in.

82. “The Bunty Club,” Tessa Hadley, in The New Yorker (2019)
This is a rather sweet story about three adult sisters revisiting their childhood home in the English when their mother, gravely ill, has been moved to a hospital or nursing home.

83. “Letter to My Sister,” Eleanor Howell, in Southeast Review (2019)
A woman writes to her sister who has disappeared, possibly to join a cult. I’m not sure what I think of this story—it contained some graphic sexuality the point of which I did not understand. The connection of sex with grief I understand, but not why there had to be quite so much, quite so graphically. Maybe it unbalanced the story or something.

84. “The Trip,” Weike Wang, in The New Yorker (2019)
A slow start but it grew on me. A non-Chinese American man and his Chinese-born but American-raised wife go on a package tour of China, and then visit with the wife’s cousins. The wife (none of these characters is named, which I’ll come back to in a moment) becomes first defensive about her Chinese identity and then immersed in it, ceasing to speak in English (even to her husband, who does not speak Chinese). It’s an interesting story. About the names. Their tour guides have names, American names self-consciously drawn from Western popular culture (that is, a guide tells them his name is “Felix, like Felix the Cat;” another says her name is “Shirley, like Shirley Temple”). The unnamed wife in the story would have used an American name up until this trip to China, but during her transformation there would presumably have begun to use a Chinese name. There is a lot of identity in a name, and leaving the characters’ names out leaves a provocative gap in their identities as presented to the reader.

85. "Death Friend," Nora Bailey, in Bronzeville Bee (2019)
A compelling fantasy story by AW’s own noranne. A woman dies and visits a sort of Bardo or afterlife, a place she knows from past deaths, and expects to meet a friend there with whom she has passed enjoyable times on her previous visits. But the friend doesn’t show up, and things take a sinister turn for her.

All right — wish me luck in catching up. I’ve tried listening to the New Yorker podcasts, because I generally can get more reading done in audio form than with my eyeballs, but I don’t really want to finish out the year with a dozen New Yorker stories. I have a stack of other stories waiting to be read — it’s just a question of getting to them!

:e2coffee:

_______________________

Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.

Chris P · Nov 30, 2019

mrsmig said:
I skipped ahead to read Ursula K. Le Guin's "Pity and Shame," the story of a woman stranded in a mining town who is looking after a man being badly injured in a cave-in. I'm a big Le Guin fan and the construction of the story, with its dual protagonists, doesn't disappoint...but it just seemed to end without really coming to a conclusion. I wanted so much to like it more, since it was one of the last stories Le Guin wrote.

I think the key to getting this story is to understand both the poet William Cowper's "Light shining out of darkness," the Abiram Bible story, and possibly Dickens's Little Dorrit. The poem basically says that no matter how bad things get, better things are coming, and the Bible story is just as the short story described, where Abiram, like the main character, gets swallowed into the earth. I think the Little Dorritt connection deals with prisons. But yeah, I agree it's not much of a conclusion other than Mr Cowper deciding to be hopeful.

Lakey · Dec 1, 2019

86. "For Food," Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way (1996)
87. "Sororally," Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way (1996)

It’s not infrequent that I come across some stories that I want to read, often while scouting markets for my own work, reading other people’s reviews or articles, or just generally poking around the literary internet. If I can’t (or don’t want to) read a story at the moment I find it, I keep it in a browser tab, and come back to it later. I don’t know who Gary Lutz is, and I don’t know precisely how this page with two very short stories of his came to be in one such open tab, but it was, and today I read them.

They are odd, to say the least, loaded down with complex elocution and very off-the-wall vocabulary. The following passage is actually one of the more readable and enjoyable segments:

I noticed that a woman from time to time passed by my window: we began to exchange waves. Nothing serious or signific at first--but, before long, a greeterly incontinence took hold of the two of us: our arms shivered away from our sides: even our wristfalls became communicational, summative. The first time I climbed all the way out, she guided me to where she said she slept: an ulterior milieu of lotions, spot cash, pedestaled cake savers ajar with the surrounding town. My hands lent themselves to her pink, winking undernesses.

Alrighty then.

I rather liked the second story better than the first; I could make more sense of it. The narrator observes a coworker, a woman with very peculiar habits, and pursues her for a sexual relationship. The relationship doesn’t work out in the long run.

I can’t decide if I like them. The verbiage is obviously self-conscious but on balance it seems playful rather than pretentious, which is essential — if it didn’t have a wink in it, it would be stifling and insufferable. It certainly could not sustain for longer pieces than these.

Would be delighted if one of you folks would have a look and tell me what you think.

:e2coffee:

_______________________

Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.

Chris P · Dec 1, 2019

Lakey said:
86. "For Food," Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way (1996)
87. "Sororally," Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way (1996)

Would be delighted if one of you folks would have a look and tell me what you think.

Invitation accepted!

*reads*

Errrrr.....yeah. Odd, as you said. They read to me like a stream of consciousness combined with Suzanne Vega's song Tom's Diner. But with more stream and less consciousness. Perhaps someone with more training in poetry might be able to describe this better? I liked the plays on words, and I assume Lutz had as much fun writing it as I would have if I'd have written it (even if finding the audience would have been tough).

Most of the reviews refer to this book as experimental, avant-guarde, post-modern, etc. The point seems to be that the sentences rather than the paragraphs or the stories are the most important elements. I recall an oldtimer expert here on AW said that the paragraph is the smallest indivisible element of story. If this is true, then perhaps Lutz's stories are what happenes when the sentence, rather than the paragraph, becomes the smallest element.

Or Lutz was pulling our legs. Or takes himself way too seriously.

A short-story reading challenge in 2019

professional dilettante

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

deceives

Balkan writer of feminist horror stories

deceives

professional dilettante

professional dilettante

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

Balkan writer of feminist horror stories

professional dilettante

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.

Balkan writer of feminist horror stories

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

professional dilettante

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

professional dilettante

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred