Can't and Won't by Lydia Davis

[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]

Her stories may be literal one-liners. Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert’s correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author’s own dreams, or the dreams of friends. What does not vary throughout Can't and Won't: Stories, Lydia Davis' fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.

Read an excerpt here.