Short and Sweet

Could short stories be the perfect read for these times? Inspire’s Ann Penn takes a look at the form and shares a range of bite-sized recommendations to consume in one sitting. . .

For those of us finding ourselves with shorter attention spans or lack of time in busy days, the short story is ideal.  As Neil Gaiman says; “the short story… seems at this point in time to be a wonderful length for our generation. It's a perfect length to read on an iPad, your Kindle or your phone.”

Short stories can be a breath of fresh of air – allowing us to explore ideas and experience situations and authors we might not have tried before. If you don’t like one writer’s style, you can easily move onto the next.  What’s not to love about that?  In the words of Haruki Murakami, “I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.”  Come with us to explore some of the beautiful plants on show today!

For a general overview and to see which authors whet your appetite, good books to start with would be all three of Philip Hensher’s anthologies: 

• The Golden Age of British ShortStories, 1890-1914
  
• The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, and 
  
• The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story.
  

To explore classic writers in more depth, Katherine Mansfield’s Selected Short Stories is a favourite – known as a master of the short story, Mansfield has been praised by Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence, among others. Her stories focus on psychological conflicts and subtle observations, and her work influenced many later writers. Elizabeth Bowen is also still popular today, with a new Vintage Classic hardback edition of Selected Stories published this month. Her stories are described in the blurb as: “Encompassing characters from many walks of life and a vast array of moods, these are intricate journeys of domesticity and discovery, of the homely and uncanny, of the mind and body.”

We can’t forget our own D.H. Lawrence of course, and a new edition of The Man Who Loved Islands will be published in May, containing sixteen short stories with strong characterisations, exploring what each person knows – and does not know - about themselves, one another, and the universe.

To get a flavour of early twentieth century American short stories, try Carson McCullers’s The Ballad of the Sad Café, described in the New York Times as: “'Brilliant... a panorama of a remarkable talent... McCullers's finest stories.”  Similarly, Flannery O’Conner’s works are usually set in the rural American South with themes of alienation, brutality, religion and dark comedy. A Good Man is Hard to Find is regarded as a masterful collection.

An exciting new collection is Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston, just out in paperback and bringing the author’s short stories together for the first time. In 1925, Zora was the only Black student at Barnard College, New York, and began capturing African American life in her writing, becoming a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Described by Toni Morrison as “one of the greatest writers of our time”, the new anthology is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender, class, racism and sexism.

Shirley Jackson is a master of the form, and of gothic horror and psychological suspense. The Lottery caused consternation when it was first published in 1948 but is now considered a classic. "Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published... The Lottery is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious.” (A. M. Homes) 

Angela Carter is perhaps our British equivalent author – The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, first published in 1979, is a feminist retelling of favourite fairy tales described by Ian McEwan as “magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality.”

Ireland has a strong tradition of short story writing. William Trevor was known as one of the world’s greatest storytellers, and his collection Last Stories probed into the depths of the human spirit. “What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently,  and show the underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate.” said Elizabeth Strout. Kevin Barry has been acclaimed as following in Trevor’s footsteps. His new collection, That Old Country Music, was named: “One of the best collections you'll read this year” by the Sunday Times.  

So many of our favourite modern authors have published anthologies, that we are spoilt for choice. It’s very hard to pick just a few to recommend but Margaret Atwood has to be on the list with her several anthologies, including Moral Disorder and Stone Mattress. “A model of distillation, precision, clarity and detail… Atwood writes with compassion and intensity not only about her characters but also about the 20th century itself.” (Mary Flanagan, Independent) 

Orange Prize winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Thing Around Your Neck contains twelve stories that turn a penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the West. “Her particular gift is the seductive ability to tell a story... Adichie writes with an economy and precision that makes the strange seem familiar. She makes storytelling seem as easy as birdsong.” (Jane Shilling, Telegraph)

Julian Barnes has published several noted anthologies, including Pulse, reviewed in the Literary Review: “Barnes' stylish prose, eye for emotional detail and sense of absurdity never let him down... He suits the short story very well.” Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes was listed as a Guardian Book of the Year and described by Margaret Drabble as “a fine and moving collection of stories, displaying [Ishiguro's] unique combination of the sad, the stoic and the consoling. It's about failure, but it dignifies failure, and with it, the human condition. There is nobody like him.”

We’re treated to brand new anthologies by several big-name authors this year. Joyce Carol Oates’s The (Other) You came out in March and ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we'd made different choices. Haruki Murakami’s latest collection of shorts, First Person Singular, was published a few days ago, and contains stories all told in the first person that challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. “For new readers, First Person Singular is a crash course in appreciating this author… each [story] has insights that remain with you long after they are done.” (The Sunday Times.) 

Medusa’s Ankles by A.S. Byatt is due to be published in May, with tales selected from over thirty years of writing. The Sunday Telegraph has reviewed the book very highly: “These little stories by one of Britain's foremost grandes dames of the writing world are a delightful surprise, packing a much greater punch than many full-length novels... They are moving, thought-provoking, witty and shocking all at once.” 

Two new collections of Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 as “master of the contemporary short story” will be published in June by Vintage Classics, one collecting selected stories from 1968-1994 and the other covering 1995-2009. 

To end this article, we’d also like to introduce you to some new voices, showing the short story is alive and well and in safe hands for the future. Dima Alzayat's new debut Alligator and other stories, captures the many ways of feeling displaced: as a Syrian, as an Arab, as an immigrant, as a woman. “Sardonic, monstrous, tender, these well-crafted tales show us circumstances that might be our own, and let us see them through the eyes of others.” (The Sunday Times)

Souvankham Thammavongsa’s debut How to Pronounce Knife, described by The i as “Spellbinding... A perfect marriage of style and refreshing, surprising substance”, shows the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and the pursuit of a place to belong.

Che Te-Peng, a former investigative reporter, shines a light on lives in China in the brand new Land of Big Numbers, described as “illuminating and sharp” by The Independent. Maria Riva puts the focus on Ukraine in her debut Good citizens need not fear, a series of bitingly funny stories interlinked by a single, crumbling apartment building around the fall of the Soviet Union.  Margaret Atwood describes Riva as “Bright, funny, satirical and relevant… A new talent to watch.”

This is just a short dip into the prolific field of short stories – there are many more brilliant authors and titles we haven’t had room to discuss here, but more than 120 titles are listed on our Pinterest page if your appetite has been whetted – including Louis de Bernieres, Zadie Smith, Alan Sillitoe, Andrea Levy, Ali Smith, Walter Mosley, Kit de Waal, Graham Swift and many many more!

Just click on the book covers to find the title in the library catalogue.  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/NottsLibraries/short-stories/