Short Story lovers discussion
What have you read recently?
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Beth
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Oct 03, 2009 08:27AM
Recently read The Dead Fish Museum Stories...some stories were enjoyable and some left me wondering "huh?" Now I'm on to Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It.
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I'm also reading the Meloy book right now. So far enjoying it quite a bit.
I've just finished reading 'Rope burns' by FX Toole (one of the short stories, Million Dollar Baby, was made into a film). Fabulous read. The stories are tough and gritty with lots of heart.
I've been reading a lot of Salinger lately.
Deborah wrote: "I've just finished reading 'Rope burns' by FX Toole (one of the short stories, Million Dollar Baby, was made into a film). Fabulous read. The stories are tough and gritty with lots of heart."Thanks for the post Deborah...definitely sounds worthwhile!
It is! I'm hunting the bookshops now for FX Toole's only other work, his novel 'Pound for pound' - but I think I'll have to get it on Amazon.
I've read a couple of collections recently. "Cape Cod Stories" gathers stories and essays from Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Paul Theroux and poems by Sylvia Plath and more, all taking place on the Cape, Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket.I've just finished "Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work" by Jason Brown. All the stories are about the citizens of a very small town in northern Maine and they all deal with detachments from the family. The stories are a little unsettling and have an eerie quality and the writing is excellent.
I've read _Margaret Lives In The Basement_, a collection of shorts by Michelle Berry. I highly recommend these. They are dark but speak to the human condition.
Read the first four stories in David Bezmozgis's Natasha yesterday--really, really good. More when I've finished.
Still reading BASS 1999, edited by Amy Tan. Best collection I have come across in a very long time.
I recently finished Tiny Deaths. It was good, with a bend towards the bizarre and fantastic. Unfortunately the title story turned me off, the voice mostly. It was about Jesus dying and being reincarnated, and dying and being reincarnated. Funny how the author picked that story to be the title of what otherwise was a decent collection.
Light Lifting, Giller-nominated debut collection by Alexander MacLeod. It is getting great, and well deserved, reviews.
I liked it better when we took one story and argued about it, uh, I mean discussed. I just read The Imp of the Perverse. Poe never quit, did he.
"The Imp of the Perverse" is a good one. (Sorry to not be more disagreeable.)
That's okay, Geoff. We agree. I had to read it again to get some of the laughs.
I'm reading Meredith Maran's "My Lie." I helped out with some of the research in "My Lie" (research assistant intern / job = "checking the facts"). I did not see any of the finalized text, however, until I received a copy of the book.I'm also reading Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock," Tim Gunn's latest, and really want to get back to D. H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" (once I'm done with my Fall 2010 assignments...).
South Loop. So far the first story is by the editor and it was brilliant. Anyone out there reading the literary mad glad rag mags? Any recommendations? SL was going to publish my artwork but got ensnared in deadlines and pixels and the quality of repro so it was a no go. They were nice enough to send me two copies all the same.
Geoffrey, if by "literary mad glad rag mags," you mean literary journals, then yes, I've got a few subscriptions, mostly to places that have published my stuff. I'm almost always disappointed by what I read, I hate to admit. (The transitive property would suggest that I'm disappointed in my own work, but the hocus pocus of ego somehow prevents that.)What is "SL"?
It is not on my currently reading list but I have been reading the bowdire series from Louis Lamour. Realy dig them plus the historical references
I`ve been popping my stuff over to the literary journals as well and so far I get only takers on my art work. They send me their free copies and I read them over. I`ve been published in FRONT RANGE whose art work was terrible, short stories were a mixed bag, from excellent to mediocre, and I couldn`t judge the quality of the poetry as I am not very astute with that medium. The other magazine was TULANE REVIEW whose stories were sparse and the art work was good.I had sent my images to SOUTH LOOP REVIEW and they wanted to publish several but in black and white and wanted me to provide higher resolution images in a very fast approaching deadline which I could not meet. The art editor rudely dismissed me from ever publishing in their magazine when I refused to run to the nearest scanner in three days notice (I do live in a very rural part of Mexico), but somehow the magazine editor sent me my two free copies in any event?'!?!?!?!?
Looking over the free copy I have I am very much impressed with it and regret not jumping on their wagon.
Other than that, I am looking to subscribe to some stateside reviews but don`t know which. Literature in English is impossible to come by here in this town and I have to travel 2 hours to Merida to the English Library there to feast my eyes.
Any recommendations? And yes, I know what you mean that there is so much being published out there that is of so little interest to you. There are so many overly educated writers with fantastic IQs who are just putting their intellect on display, without considering the entertainment factor as well as mediocre writers who are casting unimaginable characters in their stories and whose writing style leaves much to be desired.
To both Geoff and Geoffrey: http://www.storysouth.com/fall2004/sh...Wonder what you think of this 2004 article. I've kept it because it makes me feel better.
Chris, I wasn't able to read the article carefully, but I don't have much patience for short-shorts (and, thus, for extended hand-wringing about them). They're (ironically) never worth the time it takes to read them. My cynical understanding of that phenomenon is that it's the industry finding a way to give itself more publications within the same number of pages.
Geoff, It's worth reading (think of it as a LONG short story.) Actually, I thought the title wasn't accurate. It wasn't only about short shorts, but parallels what you and Geoffrey were talking about. Much about the proliferation of mediocre fiction hitting the journals. In fact his view is yours, but he does make some points about the value of flash fiction if it is done skillfully and includes the same elements necessary in the conventional short story--even if implied. Think Aesop, the Bible, O'Henry, Joel Chandler Harris, Kipling, etc. The list is long. In 'short' do me a favor and read it. I don't think you'll be sorry. He also references some other worthwhile reading, both fiction and non-fiction about writing today.
OK, Chris, I'll read it, but I can't promise today. Busy, busy bee.
Geoff, Good, you won't be sorry. Busy is good. Me, too.
Ok, guys, I can't not reply to this thread, being the editor of the current small bestseller The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. Look it up on goodreads, and I highly recommend you check it out if you have any interest in the short story. It includes a 30 page history on the short short (Geoff, this is an old genre, only getting attention again because of the highly successful Sudden Fiction and Flash anthologies, and computer dissemination of the work). The genesis of flash parallels that of the short story. And while reading stories of this length may not appeal to some readers, just as some people doen't enjoy reading short stories and prefer novels, they should not be dismissed as less of a story or as needing less craft or talent to write. If anything, a good flash is more difficult to write, as you need to have mastered all the techniques for a longer story.I agree that the general public is now producing some low quality flash in an effort to wrack up pub credits, but this doesn't mean that the genre should altogether be dismissed. Think of Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour, and tell me that that isn't worth your while reading!
For those of us who love flash, love writing and reading it, it's getting a bit tiresome to defend it. Wonder what Geoff thinks of prose poetry???
Thanks for the support, Tara. I'm a fan of flash fiction, too, and sometimes write it. Then again, sometimes it writes itself. I was feeling as though it should all be hidden away in the attic, like my crazy aunt. I'll check out your book. Recently I tried to write a 500 word story. My first attempt was over 800 words. Best exercise I've ever done, paring that story down. All the elements that were extraneous had to be eliminated and my story was greatly improved. Oh, how hard it was to part with my sentence gems. Ha!
Jason Sanford,(article mentioned above)on the web at http://www.storysouth.com/fall2004/sh... quotes the editors of Vestal Review, an online short short magazine, "A good flash, replete with a cohesive plot, rich language and enticing imagery, is perhaps the hardest type of fiction to write. A good flash is so condensed that it bortderlines poetry. A good flash engages your mind not only for the short duration of its read, but for a long time after."
The problem is, there is so much bad short, short stuff out there. Readers get burned so they don't come back, and yet they'll read longer short stories that are boring and keep coming back. I guess it's the familiar format and the never ending hope that the next one will be good.
Readers need to know where to go to find good flash. Some excellent online mags (besides the flash anthologies) are: SmokeLong Quarterly, Vestal Review, Juked, Ghoti, Elimae, Night Train. These are off the top of my head. There are many more. Your comment about it being like poetry is why I asked what Geoff thought about prose poetry, because they often cross boundaries. I did read the article you posted and didn't agree with much of what he said, obviously! With writers like Robert Olen Butler, Stuart Dybek, Jayne Anne Phillips, Ron Carlson, Mark Helprin in the field, it's hard to trash the whole genre. All bias come from lack of knowledge.
I also find the opposite idea, that flash should only be written by lit writers and must be excellent to be a bit elitist. There's room for everyone (horror, erotica, SF), we just may not want to read it all, and we don't have to :-).
I'll probably have more to say later--I haven't read the article yet--but all bias does not come from lack of knowledge. It might just as well come from the opposite. (For example, I've seen enough Coen Brothers movies to know I don't like them. Anyway, what we're talking about is a matter of taste, not bias, which is an unnecessarily loaded word.) And I'm pretty well versed in the history of the short story--I doubt if I need any lessons on that, and tradition per se is never an adequate defense of current quality or necessity.
I believe I mentioned that it was fine to not like a particular genre (yes, a taste issue). It was your very loaded statement "My cynical understanding of that phenomenon is that it's the industry finding a way to give itself more publications within the same number of pages." That statement reveals some bias. I'll just leave it at that.
I'm inclined to regard flash fiction as a circus trick.
AJ: What are your thoughts, then, on Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour, Hemingway's Our Time, Yasunari Kawabata's Palm in the Hand Stories, etc?
My point is that my bias (I won't fuss any further about the word) is based on experience, not a "lack of knowledge."
Oh, joy! Oh, bliss! Oh, conflict! Much better than. I love this or I love that. Let me throw this in. I feel MORE cheated when I read a bad conventional short story than I do when I read a bad short short. On the other hand, I'm equally happy if I've read a QUALITY story - that's overall quality - of any length. Let's see who can compare this with an ice cream cone with one dip or two. With ice cream the investment is money and health, but the reading investment is time. By the way, Tara I haven't read any of those stories, so thanks.
You crack me up, Chris.I agree with you- length is unimportant as long as the story is complete. I do like to see how some authors handle extremely short stories, but really, some of my favorite short stories are long enough that they are sometimes published as novellas.
Thanks, guys, my point is, if you love stories, you should love them at any length, not count words or pages, just base it on merit, even if you have a proclivity for one length v. another. And I got one title wrong. I highly recommend Kawabata (a Nobel Prize winner), and his complete collection titled *Palm-of-the-Hand-Stories*. No one can call his masterful use of the short form anything but art, and the Nobel Prize committee obviously agreed. I bring these names up because I suspect many others are unaware of this history of the short short and how many of our best writers have dabbled in it. Sherwood Anderson, Ambrose Bierce, Guy de Maupassant. I could go on and on. Really, no one has looked at this history before, one reason my flash field guide won an award. It's in many libraries. I'm not even doing this to sell the book, I'd rather educate people. Get your library to search for it and at least read the intro so you can come at this discussion from a better place of knowledge.Enough said. I'm done with this conversation. Thanks, Geoff and AJ, for providing me with fodder for an intro to my panel discussion next week on flash at a local writing festival! Perfect timing :-). Thanks, Chris, for starting the ball rolling.
I come to this from a position of knowledge, though I thank you for your condescending bullshit. That flash is, more often than not, little more than a literary circus trick is neatly borne out by its obscurity. Who among your examples is best remembered for their short short stories?
Wow, the sparks are flying on this one-a regular pyrotechnics show of verbiage.Thanks Tara on the leads to short short venues.
As for Jason Sanford`s article I would make several comments.1) If the MFAers think that by publishing short shorts separates them from the rest of the wheat passing through the publishing houses, I would have to say any editor worth his salt is going to know the difference between publishing in Missouri Review, Granta or Kenyon Review and Publish your ss here Review. So even if the MFAers are choosing this route, I can`t imagine the editors at St. Martins paying much attention to it. Perhaps Sanford was an editor at a mediocre publishing house.
2) There are those of us who read short shorts, blasters, sudden fiction with nary a thought of embarking on the same. I started reading them back in 1981 when I was driving a hack in Cambridge, MA. I would sit at the cab stand, waiting for the fares to roll in, having already chatted with my fellow cabbies twice over, and bored out of my mind. I couldn`t handle a novel or a full length story, as there was way too many interruptions on my time. "Get your cab up a spot, buddy, your taking up the line", and so SUDDEN FICTION became my book. And then SUDDEN FICTION INTERNATIONAL.
3) the point he makes that the reading public is reading novels is true. Since Reagan, we have grown a class of indolent capitalists who have outlasted the working day. Plus the fact that the average lifespan has increased and that older people are in better health has increased the demand for the novel.
4) the fact that "The average MFA professor is white, upper-middle class, and unacquainted with anything other than their little academic life." And I suppose back in 1927, the average MFA professor had jobs as a lumberjack, fast order cook, seaman and trumpeteer before he became a prof? Or that he was acquainted with anything else than academia.
5) Sanford says that so many stories he reviewed had so little passion. Maybe it`s just him that had no passion and is so insular in his outlook, as he was so unacquainted with anything other than his fishbowl of a publishing world.
I wonder how many manuscripts Sanford reviewed and passed up on eventually became published by other houses and enjoyed great readership. Yes, I have worked on two small literaries and I too was chagrined by the lack of quality. But there are always the gems in the rough and that is the payoff in the publishing world. You wade through the much and you find the good story. But along the way, perhaps I too, neglected to see the stellar quality of a story that needed some fine editing, rewrite or reconceptualizing. Don`t be so hasty in pointing the finger but be a little more self critical Mr. Sanford.
AJPopularity is no indicator of quality. The Japanese love Haiku, but for an American, it makes little sense. Otherwise,Oscar Mayer weinies would be the best of the best in cuisine, forget shrimp scampi with a cabernet savignon on the side.
And no, your cynicism comes across merely as prejudice. There are those of us who do enjoy a good short short and some are far superior to so many full fledged novels. Try reading SWADDLING CLOTHES by Yukio Mishima sometime, or AXOLOTL, by Julio Cortazar.
Then compare those ss against Jacqueline Susann. Remember her?
4) the fact that "The average MFA professor is white, upper-middle class, and unacquainted with anything other than their little academic life." And I suppose back in 1927, the average MFA professor had jobs as a lumberjack, fast order cook, seaman and trumpeteer before he became a prof? Or that he was acquainted with anything else than academia.Entirely aside from the question of flash fiction....
To that, I think the obvious response is that there was no MFA professor in 1927; creative writing as an academic discipline is something that has only appeared in the last 50 or so years.
But of course, there were creative writing courses.
Still, I think it is worth noting that neither Hemingway, nor Steinbeck, nor Fitzgerald, nor Faulkner actually finished his university education. Something has changed.
Quite true. It should have read English professor, and there were those who back in 27 taught creative writing.And yes, Hemingway and Steinbeck et al. did not finish their university educations. But in the case of Steinbeck he continued to sit in on Literature classes on an audit basis for years, as the profs knew his career was going to amount to something.
Anybody want to talk about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? You can look up Jason Sanford. He started storySouth. BTW I don't know him. I have a feeling he and AJ may have similar writing leanings. I do research on the people I'm talking to online. I don't think any of you really read the article. It was written in 2004 and still resonates. Actually, he agrees with most of the points all of you make, which lead to the fact that we all prefer quality over length, that some MFAers are good and some good writers don't need a degree, etc. I think I'd rather discuss a specific story. I guess Geoffrey's word pyrotechnic describes this discussion best. I just know that I can find good short stories, but I don't frequently find them in university sponsored literary journals. Anyone read The Sun? There's usually very good fiction there, so it can be done.
Well, Chris, maybe someone can start a side-thread then; I'm a lot more interested in this discussion than the ones we normally conduct. (Though I'll readily admit I haven't read the Sanford article yet. I still plan to, but I'm in scramble mode at work--grading essays, coaching bowling, etc., the fun of teaching high school.)We're not really in 'What have you read recently mode' anymore. . . .
I actually have read the article, but not recently. ;)Observing that neither Faulkner nor Hemingway nor Steinbeck nor Fitzgerald finished their formal education doesn't imply a judgment against those who do. After all, their lot includes, say, James Joyce.
But I don't think it's a stretch to say that the autodidact writer is now a rare exception to the rule, and that this has changed since the war.
There's no doubt that what A.J. says is true in the main. And the autodidact writer is definitely shut further outside the networks of publishing, at least "literary" publishing. At the risk of incurring Tara's wrath, I would say that the short-short feels to me like an especially academic form now, an even more concentrated case of what's also happened to the short story and (to a slightly lesser but still notable degree) the novel. That might actually be one way to put my dissatisfaction with most of what is offered up as accomplished flash fiction: that it feels precious, self-satisfied, and overgroomed, like a college quad.
Short Story lovers
Books mentioned in this topic
Suspended Heart (other topics)Light Lifting (other topics)
Tiny Deaths (other topics)
The Man in the Picture (other topics)
The Dead Fish Museum (other topics)
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