Collections and such

Reading a lot of s.s. collections lately (writer hispter short hand for short stories) and loving them even more than usual. The general reading public, as in my neighbour, says the short story is coming back. Did it ever go away? And it isn't just him, trickle down literary theorey – much more interesting than Reaganomics - suggests that people are going, hey, these stories are shorter than novels! And damn, they're pretty good.

That last statement is not supposed to be a jibe - as us hipster reader/writers/thinkers know, the short story has long been the keeper of the cool - but I am celebrating, doing the hippy-hippy shake over s.s. collections finally getting their due. George Saunders Tenth of December is my bet for one of the top prizes this year (thinking Pulitzer or National Book award), and I just finished the astonishingly good Emerald City by Jennifer Egan.

The whole novel in stories thing has been bopping along - Egan again with A Visit from the Goon Squad (Pulitzer Winner - and maybe future HBO series?) But I still love the plain old, unadulturated s.s. collection. See Carver, Munro, Hemingway, O'Connor, and Richard Ford... especially Ford. reading Egan's Emerald City, I wondered about the connections in the stories - there were some overlaps, but the premises and characters were diverse. I'd have to think deeply to find a shared theme - maybe loss (but isn't that in everything?)

I do know that when I read a great story, the effect can be transformative. True, also when I read a great novel (See DeLillo). I do read to see life in another way, to observe it from another lens (paraphrasing Richard Ford in a Paris Review interview), and to be challenged to think differently. Jobs and the boys at Apple were talking about desktop machines when they came up with that tagline - but for me, the possibility is in the print. Sort of like the proof is in the pudding.

I am looking forward to releasing my new collection in a couple of weeks. These stories are connected by a stream of dark humour, and a bit of mystic (slipstream) elements thrown in for good measure. Now, it could be said this is just a description of all my work - and it was said, by me, just now. (Very meta as my hipster adult kids say).

Stay tuned. And do go read a good s.s. collection. I suggest Rock Springs by Richard Ford, as it may be the best, ever.