Short Stories.

version

Well-known member
I recently read Labyrinths (Borges) and Father Sergius (Tolstoy) and it was incredibly refreshing after clinging to novels for an extended period. There's something really satisfying about someone being able to tell a story that cleanly, to hold off the sprawl and lay it all out in just a few pages.

I've got a bunch of stuff tucked away in a list, but I'd be interested in hearing any favourites people might have.
 

jenks

thread death
Big fan of the short story which is enjoying a renaissance at present. Here's a small selection that i have read recently.

David Hayden - Darker with the Lights on is great: this one would appeal to those here who like the uncanny: https://granta.com/the-unspoken/

Wendy Erskine - Sweet Home - contemporary stories from Northern Ireland: This is teh start of her first story in that collection https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/short-story-wendy-erskine-4025946-May2018/

Samantha Schweblin - Mouthful of Birds - South American, surrealism: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazin...a-schweblin-toward-happy-civilization/576430/

Chris Power - Mothers: https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/read-short-story-from-mothers-by-chris-power/

Deborah Eisenberg - Twilight of the Superheroes: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1989/02/13/under-the-82nd-airborne

Lucia Berlin - a Manual for Cleaning Women - amongst the best short stories i have read in years: https://www.shortstoryproject.com/story/a-manual-for-cleaning-women/

there's all the american greats - James Salter, Carver, Yates but I think the best of them is Grace Paley - this is almost perfect: https://biblioklept.org/2014/03/08/wants-grace-paley/

Obviously all the nineteenth century experts like Chekhov, Flaubert, Maupassant but again possibly the best of those is Katherine Mansfield. Also Kate Chopin. And DH Lawrence's short stories are much better than his novels.

Two good recent collections by small presses - Attrib by Eley Williams and Show Them A Good Time – Nicole Flattery.

also Lydia Davis who writes very short stories, almost aphorisms at times.

Finally - if you're interested in the short story Jonathan Gibbs, teh writer has a weekly newsletter where writers recommend their favourite short stories. https://apersonalanthology.com/
 
Rick Bass - For a little while
The masterpiece of the collection is ‘The Hermit’s Story’. A couple caught in a violent arctic storm are trapped at the edge of a frozen lake. Venturing out from the shore the man vanishes from sight when the ice cracks beneath him. What follows is so eerily bizarre that it seems at first to be fantasy. The frantic woman peers down and sees the man waving, not swimming: beneath the surface, the water has drained away, and the pair cross the dry lake bed beneath a roof of thick blue ice. Huddled under the frozen surface are birds, sheltering in pockets of air to survive. The story glitters like an ice sculpture, dazzling, unforgettable.
 

catalog

Well-known member
one of my fave short stories is 'the soft touch' which is in the 'acide house' by irvine welsh. i just really like the economy of it - there's only about 5 pages but it's saying so much and the characters are really well drawn. just really good writing. when they made the acid house film they totally fucked it up
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Chekhov - The Lady with the Dog, The Bishop, The Student, The Two Voldoyas
Mauspassant - Boule de Suif, La Maison Tellier, The Horla
Kafka - A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony
Joyce - The Dead, A Painful Case, An Encounter
Flaubert - A Simple Heart

From what I've read, Chekhov is the best short story writer and 'The Dead' is the best story.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
nathanael west "a cool million", the Horatio Alger satire that's just fucking unrelenting. better known for "the day of the locusts" (a classic tale of Hollywood) and "miss lonelyhearts".
 

version

Well-known member
Has anyone read Barthelme? I keep seeing him pop up in relation to short stories, but I haven't gotten round to him yet.
 

luka

Well-known member
Has anyone read Barthelme? I keep seeing him pop up in relation to short stories, but I haven't gotten round to him yet.

He's terrible. Steer well clear and disregard the Pynchon foreword. I can't overemphasise how distasteful it is. The worst kind of cutesy postmodernism. Makes Ashberry seem sympathetic. Burn it and bury the ashes.
 

jenks

thread death
It will come as no surprise to Luka that I like Barthelme - just I like DFW’s short stories and Hemingway’s.

Alice Monroe is pretty much the modern genius. Angela Carter obvs. Doris Lessing.

Great essay in Charles Baxter’s Burning Down the House about The Dead.

Clare Louise Bennett’s Pond and Zambra’s my Documents both published by Fitzcarraldo.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Wot, no Poe?!

Love me some Poe short stories - not just the well-known ones, but a lot of his more obscure stories are real gems too - 'Facts in the case of M. Valdemar', 'Conversations with a mummy', 'MS found in a bottle' are all good, I remember. 'The Gold Bug' is a decent early example of a crypto-thriller, spoiled a bit by the toe-curlingly racist caricature of a black servant, and while the L. August Dupin stories are interesting as foundational pieces in the detective genre and a clear prototype for Sherlock Holmes, 'The murders in the Rue Morgue' has possibly the daftest denouement of any mystery story ever written.
 

jenks

thread death
I kind of took him for granted. When I made my list I was trying to highlight recent writers rather than canonical ones and also mention more women, as it seems to me that unless you’re Ursula Le Guin, women writers don’t get mentioned much round these parts.
 

version

Well-known member
I tried reading Poe last year and lost interest pretty quickly. It just wasn't interesting to me and every story was a slog to get through.
 
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