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Fiction, tapas-style

I always hated short stories.

I considered reading a short story like going out to dinner and only ordering an appetizer.  Want a real meal?  Eat a goddamn novel. – Jacob Tomsky

I came to the short story late.  It wasn’t til this year, 2013, at the age of 38, that I finally began to appreciate this form.

I don’t remember exactly when it began.  Three ingredients fell into a pot over a period of months – Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and subsequent suggestions that I read “The Lottery,” my quest to read Southern women – and a delicate broth began to bubble.  It was thin at first, but as it perked and popped, as it reduced and thickened, its flavor deepened, became more complex, more surprising, and more pleasurable than I thought a humble soup could be.

Like Tomsky, quoted above, I never considered short stories to be – what?  Rich?  Deep?  Memorable?  No.  None of those alone, and all of them at at once.

Satisfying.  That’s what it was.  I didn’t think stories would fill me up.  I didn’t think they’d satiate.  When I read, I want to get lost in a story.  I want setting, I want fully fledged characters, I want depth and complexity.   I don’t want chop.  I don’t want quick.  I want a good thing to continue.  I want to gorge.

When I first came across A Moveable Feast, I did not realize it was a book of short stories (or memoirs – I think Hemingway didn’t want to get sued, so he claimed “This book is fiction.”)  I was disappointed it wasn’t a novel.  I began anyway, and within minutes I was underlining passages, finishing a narrative then leafing back to it’s beginning.  That bit was only four pages, and look what he did!  The amount of story, character, setting, punch that Hemingway accomplished in each piece astonished me.  I ate story after story, in bed with my yellow pencil, appreciating short form fiction for the first time, impressed by how smart an author has to be to achieve such brevity.

My reaction was similar when I read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”  I had written about The Haunting of Hill House, and so many reading friends responded with, Have you read “The Lottery?”, that I finally resigned myself to finding the book. My friend Amy said, No, it’s not a book.  It’s a short story.  Here’s a link.  I read it in a matter of minutes, while onions caramelized in a skillet on the stove.  In that short amount of time I gasped in wonder at the story’s brilliance, at how much there was to chew on.  How much there was to hold on the tongue.  How much there was to savor.

And then.  My quest to read Southern women.  Who comes to mind when you think of Southern women writers? Flannery O’Connor.  A sister Savannah native, whom Amy chided me for never reading.  “Hello, Andrea.  She went to our alma mater.”  And what did O’Connor write?  You guessed it.  Short stories.  Twisted, powerful, Southern Gothic 10-page pieces with flesh and blood characters and as deep an immersion in the South as I’ve experienced in any full length novel.

More tastings followed – a wallop of a story from my critique buddy, short fiction from my dad – and it was at this point, when I was in this blinking, vulnerable, maybe short stories are awesome state that I came across Jacob Tomsky’s “So You Hate Short Stories” manifesto on Book Riot, in which he tells the (short story) of the origins of his Short Story Thursday project in which he emails a classic short piece out each week.  I was practically cheering by the end of his essay.  As soon as I read the final sentence, I sent an email to shutyourlazymouthandread@shortstorythursdays.com and said, “I just read your piece on Book Riot, and I want short stories on Thursday please.  Thank you!”

So far in my 38 years, I’ve read very few brief fiction pieces.  I barely know where to begin.  Other than O’Connor and Hemingway, my experience with short stories is limited, and I am in a feed-me state: feed me your favorites.  My ears perk when my favorite podcasters discuss a must-read compilation of short stories (Alice Munroe), and now, every Thursday, I eagerly await Tomsky’s carefully curated, hilariously introduced, always-a-fun-surprise classic short story in my inbox.

Short stories are becoming my go-to when I want to graze, or snack, or when I am in that limbo between novels, when I’m hungover from the last one or need to cleanse my palate for the next one. But even more than that, even more than snacking or grazing, I am realizing that though a novel may provide a fill-you-up meat and potatoes type meal, sometimes fine dining is composed of tastings – of exquisite soups served in demitasse cups, a single bite of melt-on-your-tongue lamb, a plate of fruits and cheese.  And sometimes, the most fun meals are spent lingering late at night, filling up at leisure tapas-style – tortilla Española, Serrano ham, grilled Spanish sausages – sating your palate, your need for entertainment, your hunger, small plate after succulent small plate.

If you think you’d be interested in signing up for Short Story Thursdays (SST), please read Jacob Tomsky’s piece on Book Riot.  It will give you a feel for what the introductory email is like for each story – hilarious (to me) and with lots of swearing.  You can also follow SST on Facebook and on Twitter @SSTexecutives.

35 thoughts on “Fiction, tapas-style”

  1. We just started short fiction this week in my creative writing class at the community college. (I am on my own mid-life journey of writing discovery). The instructor handed out “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, which I had never read. I’m still mulling it over, but it’s powerful.

    For more current short fiction, you should read: “Battleborn” by Claire Vaye Watkins and “Grind” by Mark Maynard. They are authors with Nevada roots, so their perspective will be quite different from your Southern readings. I lived in Virginia years ago and read O’Connor in younger days. The Western point of view will spin you around.
    Enjoy your exploration of short fiction!

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    1. Thank you so much for the recommendations, Barbara! My second favorite setting for fiction is the West (well, it’s tied with New England, I should say), so I’m excited to read these.

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  2. Short stories are a hard sell to publishers. They want novels, mostly. That’s why Donald Ray Pollock’s first book, “Knockemstiff”, a collection of short stories, is such an anomaly. Where do you weigh in on the novella ?

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    1. I’m becoming a big fan of the novella. “Ballad of the Sad Café” turned me on that one. I love that a novella is long enough to really get deep into it, but short enough that I can still get to the next book in my TBR pile.

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  4. Love this, Andrea.
    I am also just beginning to acquire a taste for short fiction. I am thrilled that your post includes some suggestions as I am sadly illiterate when it comes to this genre. Though I own some collections of short fantasy works, I’ve been hungering for a variety of short story flavors. I look forward to exploring your picks!
    🙂

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    1. I recently bought “The Complete Stories” of Flannery O’Connor and am enjoying it immensely. I’d like to also acquire a Hemingway collection. Until then, I love the sampling I’m getting through the Short Story Thursday emails, and I’ve got an Alice Munroe collection on hold at the library. It looks like the comments here are giving us a lot to work with, too – Dubliners by James Joyce seems to be a favorite.

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  5. Dubliners by James Joyce is the first collection of short stories I read where I realized just how powerful that form of fiction can be. I even liked his short stories better than his long fiction. They’re much more accessible and meaningful to me. I still don’t read short stories as often as I should, but this post has motivated me to get back into it!

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    1. Yes! I like bringing them with me to swim and soccer practice, or propping them up on my cookbook stand when I’m eating lunch. A nibble of turkey, a nibble of fiction.

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  7. I enjoyed James Joyce’s Dubliners much more than his longer works. Recommended. And I’ve just been told that Oscar Wilde is at his best in the short story form, too. Will be picking up a collection of those soon, too.

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    1. You are the second person to mention Dubliners here. Looks like I need to check this out… And I would have never thought of Oscar Wilde. This is getting very exciting.

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  8. I loved this post! I, too, have never been a big fan of the short story. But after reading this, I’m going to give them a try. I love to read, and fiction novels are my favorite. I love memoirs too. But I will look for some short story collections now. Thanks for whetting my appetite!! 🙂

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  9. P.S. My favorite horror film of all time was the original “The Haunting of Hill House” featuring Julie Harris & Claire Bloom. The movie was made in 1963. It was so intense! I bought a used copy of the book and try to read it every Halloween, just for added creepiness. 🙂 I’ve seen the more recent adaptation (1999) and it did not hold a candle to the original movie. They don’t run the old one on television much anymore, but if you get a chance, try to check it out. Absolutely scary as heck!! 🙂

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  10. My final class before graduating from college was creative writing. I told my professor, before taking his class, I used to think short stories were written by people who weren’t creative enough to come up with a whole novel! How wrong I was!! I am amazed at how compact the stories are, and it gave me an entirely different perspective as a writer. I would agree with a comment above about Oscar Wilde. Of course Mark Twain’s short stories are wonderful. Also Joseph Conrad, Frank O’Connor, Tobias Wolfe, of course Flannery O’Connor, Bernard Malamud, Chekov, Gertrude Stein…wow, so many I can’t list them all.

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    1. “I used to think short stories were written by people who weren’t creative enough to come up with a whole novel! How wrong I was!!” Hahaha! Right there with you.

      Thanks so much for the recommendations – I’ve got a list going now. I will never run out of reading material 🙂

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  11. I’ve always liked short stories just as much as novels. While novels are like a big hearty meal, like you say, a short story is like a quick snack to me.

    The Lottery is a good read; rather gloomy though. I had never even heard of it…thanks for sharing!

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  13. Oh I just LOVE short stories, and always have done. They are just so cleverly crafted. So much of everything in one powerful punch.

    A master of the short story, for me, is Ray Bradbury. Get a collection of his short stories – some are only half a page long, and they linger and LINGER in your mind.

    Shortest horror story in the world? : “The last man in the world heard a knock at his door.”

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      2. Hope you enjoy his work 🙂

        I truly love a well-crafted short story. There is something very satisfying about them, about the craftmanship of them *and* there is the bonus of being able to indulge in one even if you only have a short period of time.

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  14. Andrea,

    When you have the time, you must read “The Theory of Light and Matter” by Andrew Porter. It’s a collection of rather brilliant short stories that peel back the veneer on suburban America.

    Porter is a Flannery O’Connor Award winner. He’s a wonderful writer.

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  17. LOVED this post! Thanks for giving cred to short stories and novella’s..I have been a fan for years. Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea is a family right of passage. (Not quite the length of a novel, too long to be a true short story). Also, A Gift From The Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (yes, that Lindbergh). In college I was led to reading Edgar Alan Poe’s works too. Sometimes morbid but obviously an excellent look into human psyche (and history). My favorite is the Cask of Amontillado.

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