Took me long enough, didn't it? This is what happens when I conceive of making a simple list of stories I've used in class with a brief explanation of why. Most of the time, I don't know why, not consciously. And the answers aren't always simple.
I have one more appendix to add to my notes on short story writing. May I complete it before I mark my twenty-fifth year of teaching, or pass into oblivion.
A Long
Reading List of Short Stories
Below is a list of stories I’ve assigned to my
Short Story Writing students over the years. It may not be complete but it’s as
close as I will ever get without digging through boxes and crates (yes, I do
have boxes; crates may be a slight exaggeration). It constitutes my unofficial
“anthology” of short stories, if ever I were to put together a textbook for my
class. I never used a textbook , because I never found one that contained
everything I wanted. I keep running into the problem that most collections of
short fiction are geared for literature classes. I would like to see more
anthologies designed for use in writing classes (publishers: get in touch with
me; I’m available).
Certain stories I’ve used over and over again.
Others I have tried once and promptly abandoned. It’s difficult to know how a
particular class will respond to a particular story. Every class reads the same
story differently, just as every individual reads the same story differently.
In one class I might have great success with Nabokov’s “A Guide to Berlin”; in
another class it shoots right over the students’ heads. You make your picks and
you take your chances.
The stories reflect my own tastes more than they
reflect any notion of choosing “the best” or “the greatest.” That’s for
literature classes. In my writing classes I’m more interested in what’s being
done story-tellingwise and how that may have been accomplished. Of course, that
doesn’t preclude a story being “great,” which a significant number of these
stories happen to be (and not necessarily the ones you might first suppose).
When I started listing these stories, I had no
idea how many there were. Twenty-four years will do that.
In no particular order:
“Araby”
by James Joyce
I’ve been using this one for ages. If you
haven’t read “Araby” you haven’t taken my class. The quintessential “epiphany”
story, which serves as a decent model for what can be done with a story based
on “personal experience,” real or imagined. Sometimes I say it’s the greatest
story ever written; other times I say I haven’t the slightest idea why it’s
earned its reputation. But I keep reading it and I keep finding new reasons to
admire it.
“A
Dill Pickle” by Katherine Mansfield
This may be my second most often assigned story.
I love that all takes place in one scene, in a little tea room, between two
people – although much is touched upon within those constraints. I admire its
economy and its mastery of point of view.
I am also amazed at how differently students will interpret the
characters in this story (and so validly)
“Duel”
by Richard Matheson
I’ve used this story because the TV movie made
from it is so well known. I emphasize the economy and precision of Matheson’s
storytelling. We also look at the opening sentence: it’s apparent simplicity
but it’s subtle drawing of the reader into the action of the story.
“In
the Late Cretaceous” by Connie Willis
I use this one because it’s so funny and because
of the way she draws the parallels between the dinosaurs demise and the modern
university, as well as keeping the multiple threads of her characters in play
without dragging down the story’s pace.
“Defender
of the Faith” by Philip Roth
A great “problem” story. Editorial comment: you have to go back to the short fiction to see
how great a writer Roth can be.
“The
Last Mohican” by Bernard Malamud
Malamud’s “doppelganger” story. It’s a good
example of a story putting a character to a very personal test by pairing him
with a character that subtly reflects a part of his own unacknowledged, darker
nature.
“A
Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
Absolutely essential to read this story. We look
at the opening paragraph and see how it prepares you for every subsequent
revelation of the story. The ending as well is worth many re-readings.
“Parker’s
Back” by Flannery O’Connor
When I get tired of talking about how great “A
Good Man is Hard to Find” is, I try to find another exemplary O’Connor story.
This one isn’t perfect, but it has at its heart a great problem, which the
protagonist tries to solve. His failure is brilliantly illustrated, like the
tattoo itself that Parker gets.
“A
Temple of the Holy Ghost” by Flannery O’Connor
See above. Along with the masterful control of
point of view, its powerful climax and its serene, haunting ending.
“The
Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen
I read this story for years without going back
to the ballad of which this turns out to be an effective and loyal retelling –
a matter which adds such great resonance to Bowen’s painstaking and effective
use of detail – sense of place, character, tone and mood. The heart of the
story is so lightly but effectively introduced. And the ending, after multiple
readings, remains chilling and disturbing in the very best way.
“A
Tree of Night” by Truman Capote
One year my class night fell on Halloween. I
decided to celebrate (and allow my students to celebrate) by choosing three of
the creepiest stories I had ever read. This was one of them. I love stories
that take place in essentially one setting – in one scene. I later tried my
hand at my own “terrors of travel” story, called “The Ambiguities.” Capote, I
confess, still managed the more effective job.
“Where
Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
My second choice for Halloween (my third was
“The Demon Lover”). A profoundly scary story where essentially nothing dramatic
occurs. It is all in the dialog – the sense of threat from “Mr. Friend,” of the
mercilessly cool exercise of power and the thick sense of inevitability of our
unfortunate protagonist’s fate.
“A
Guide to Berlin” by Vladimir Nabokov
On first reading, this looks like a random
selection of jottings, interesting in their individual vividness, but not
particularly cohesive. With the last few sentences, you realize this story is a
story, structured to hide its intent in plain sight. It’s still open to a
number of interpretations, but its themes of war and time and remembrance
remain powerful even nine decades after its first publication.
“The
Jar” by Ray Bradbury
What’s in the jar? Imagination. It’s TV. It’s
the unconscious manifest. It’s just junk collected in a jar. It’s the perfect
metaphor – except you ruin it if you call it a metaphor. I’m not sure if I have
a clear reason why I’ve used this story in class except that it fascinates me,
and I hope it fascinates my students as well.
“There
Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury
I’m adamant about stories being about people.
I’m also adamant about exceptions to the rule, of which this may be one of the
most notable. This story “works” in a profound way, but why? The commentaries
my students provide on that question I find ceaselessly fascinating.
“The
Wooing of Ariadne” by Harry Mark Petrakis
I have always loved this story for its plain
narrative structure, its strong first-person voice and it’s
just-breaking-the-ice conclusion grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat. And
yet, in its simplicity (it’s been staged as a high school play) it leaves a
depth of texture and interpretation that’s humbling for any writer who reads
it. Petrakis, perhaps, is a writer’s writer. He channels all his Greek
ancestors with every sentence.
“The
Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree, Jr.
I’ll never forget the rage expressed by one of
my students, a retired accountant, at discovering that this was a science
fiction story only after reading almost the entire story. Of course, a careful rereading reveals that this is science
fiction story from the very first sentence. Books can be written about this one
story – or at least collections of essays.
“The
Chaser” by John Collier
This serves as the classic example of how to do a full story in one scene,
consisting mostly of a dialog between a young man looking for a love potion,
and the older gentleman who sells it to him for a dollar. Within the scene, we
gain, in the most economic way, what led the young man here and – inevitably –
where he will go from there, and how he will return to the little apartment of
the older gentleman. A masterpiece of economy, voice and structure.
“Walking
Distance” by Rod Serling
Often, I’ve had students in class who weren’t
familiar with short stories – but they were familiar (especially if they were
“of an age”) with anthology format TV shows, like The Twilight Zone. I chose this because not only is it one of the
deepest, most poignant (and slightly autobiographical) of the TV episodes, it’s
also one of Serling’s best short stories as
short stories (he published a few collections of prose versions of his scripted
episodes).
“The
Familiar” by Albert E. Cowdrey
The first story of Cowdrey’s I read, which mixes
a vivid New Orleans location with mystery and magic. I used it as a example of
“trusting the story” to find the “voice.”
“The
Little Things” by Bridget McKenna
This is a great example of how to take a fantasy
premise and write about it in the most realistic way possible. A brilliant,
vivid, witty tale by a most underrated writer. I thought my students would
appreciate it and I was mostly right.
“The
Dead Boy at Your Window” by Bruce Holland Rogers
I love this story as an example of taking an
impossible, dreamlike premise and presenting it in a mix of folk tale and dream
record – but never questioning its bizarre reality. It has a strong, emotional
core that is never overplayed and all the more effective for that restraint.
“The Brown Wasps” by Loren Eiseley
Technically, this is an essay, but an essay with
all the elements and qualities of a good short story.
“The
Snatchers” by Jane Yolen
As they say these day: “Because Jane Yolen.” I
needn’t say more, except that I was looking for a story that worked in a
contemporary fashion though it evoked all the disturbing strangeness of a good
folk tale.
“O
Lonesome Day That Ends in Shame” by Andrew Fox
“The
Secret Life of Mrs. Lewis Lockhardt” by Tom O’Neal
“The
Gentleman” by Martha McPhee
“Every
Day Different” by Robert J. Levy
One term, many years ago, one of my students
wanted to know why I didn’t use more contemporary stories in class – what was
being written now and what, logically, editors were buying. I picked this story
from Redbook, I believe, along with
another and a couple from The New Yorker.
I can’t say I remember much from the reading of them. All of them seemed
somehow incomplete, indirect, in conclusive. I suppose I should give them
another chance, after almost twenty years, but so far I’ve been able to find
more interesting stories to add to the reading list rather than revisit this
and the others I chose that term.
The exception, at one
level, is the story “Every Day Different,” which I drew from a then-current
issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
The story shows exceptional skill as it finds a new take on an old story
premise.
“In the Balance” by Judith L. Post
From that same period of the stories cited
above, I found this a solid, balanced and very human mystery tale drawn from
the pages of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery
Magazine, which is still a good source for work of equal caliber.
“Riding
the Rap” by Elmore Leonard
Also from that same above-mentioned period (my
students rode me hard in those days). This appeared in the New Yorker, which
appeared to signal that “popular” writer Leonard had arrived. The piece
demonstrates all the qualities and strengths of a first chapter of an Elmore
Leonard novel, which is exactly what it is.
“The
Price” by Algis Budrys
Like “The Chaser,” a chilling story done in one
scene, in one room, with four characters and a powerful ending.
“Semper
Fi” by Damon Knight
“Masks”
by Damon Knight
Knight published both these stories, in
different places, with annotations on the right-hand page, explaining why he
put this in or didn’t mention that. They may not be Knight’s best stories, but
I like to show students that sometimes there is a method to the madness, and the effects they feel from reading
a work of fiction have deliberate (as well as intuitive) causes.
“Two
Gallants” by James Joyce
“Eveline”
by James Joyce
Occasionally, I tired of using “Araby” in class,
so at different times I have tried these two, which are both fine stories,
though they don’t have that feel of lost innocence, regret, and
kick-in-the-head-epiphany that makes “Araby” so vital.
“The
Magic Man” by Charles Beaumont
I was looking for a story that evoked a sense of
wonder without necessarily engaging in fantasy or speculation. Of wonder, of
“magic,” and its intrinsic frailty. In other words, I was looking for an excuse
to include a story by the brilliant (and overlooked) Charles Beaumont.
“The
Portobello Road” by Muriel Spark
It occurs to me, as I look at the Muriel Spark
stories I’ve chosen over the years, that the brilliance of Spark is often in
her choice of point of view. Here’s a ghost story told by the ghost. It is not
like anything you would imagine a ghost story to be, but when you reach the end
it is profoundly apparent that no other point of view could have told this
story so fully and so powerfully.
“Three
Fairy Tales With Unhappy Endings Due to Bad Timing” by Pamela Miller
A set of three poems by my wife which are
exactly what the title states they are. I gave them to students so they can see
how one can re-imagine folk and fairy tales, using the basic structure of such
tales to add a new twist, especially helpful for writers who have trouble
applying structure to their writing – why not borrow parts or even the whole of
another kind of story?
“Exchange”
by Ray Bradbury
A beautiful latter-day Bradbury tale that takes
place in a library. What’s not to like?
“The
Distant Sound of Engines” by Algis Budrys
Budrys was a genius for many reasons, but he
possessed a particular genius for telling science fiction tales without
traditional science fiction trappings or settings. This story takes place
completely in a hospital room, narrated by an injured truck driver. It is
evocative, haunting and unmistakably science fiction.
“Henry
James, This One’s for You” by Jack McDevitt
Stories often rely on the decisive actions of
their protagonists. That’s certainly true of Jack’s evocation of a book
editor’s anxiety. Half the readers of this story cheer the editor’s action; the
other half scream bloody murder (for a reason).
“Steadfast
Castle” by Michael Swanwick
A story told entirely in dialogue utilizing a
simple method and effective method. More than a clever exercise in technique,
content and form are beautifully matched.
“Charles”
by Shirley Jackson
A recent addition. I wanted to find a Shirley
Jackson story that wasn’t “The Lottery.” This story may telegraph its
conclusion, especially for more sophisticated readers, but it’s still fun to
study how Jackson drops all the hints that allow we readers to intuit the
story’s ending long before the protagonist does.
“He
Swung and He Missed” by Nelson Algren
I had a hard time choosing an Algren story for
my classes. So many of them seem formless; others have a structure that seems
to lead to an inevitable march toward doom – neither impression is really true,
but it can be too easy to arrive at that conclusion after an initial reading. I
picked this one because it’s essentially a love story, an unabashed love story,
and a poignant one at that. I believe Algren is one of the unacknowledged
geniuses of American letters, and I decided this one is an “accessible”
introduction of both Algren’s wit and his hard edges.
“Circe”
by Eudora Welty
Just tried this story recently. I was intrigued
by a Welty story that didn’t take place in her native Mississippi, and a story
based on myth. I admire that Welty has
chosen the point of view of a character from whose POV we rarely see, and that
her narrator’s eye is as relentlessly perceptive as in the best of her better
known works.
“Dalrymple
Goes Wrong” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I chose this one because it has an opening that
is, of its sort, absolutely perfect.
“The
Forks” by J. F. Powers
I chose this one because it has an ending that
is, of its sort, absolutely perfect.
“Coming
to Terms” by Eileen Gunn
I liked this one because it has a mystery at its
core that is never solved and that keeps the story from resolving, I believe
(though I may be wrong). And yet it works. It also helps that its inspiration
is the author Avram Davidson, who I consider one of finest writers of the
twentieth century, and whom I suspect would appreciate this story, and even
unravel its intrinsic mystery.
“The
Green Glass Sea” by Ellen Klages
Started (and published) as a short story. Turned
out to be the first chapter of her first novel. Is it a short story disguised
as a novel chapter, or a novel chapter disguised as a short story? Either way
you decide, it has a vivid austerity. Klages is an author who will always find
a way to break the rules, but invisibly.
“The
Prehensile Tail” by James Tate
Tate is a brilliant, surrealistic prose poet.
His work often breaks every expectation a reader might have, but we still enjoy
reading his crazy little tales. I like to ask my students, “How can he do
that?”
“The
First Year of My Life” by Muriel Spark
Another of Spark’s brilliant exercises in voice,
this time by casting a baby as omniscient narrator. Just when you think you’ve
pegged it as a brilliant stunt, the story gets profoundly serious. Never turn
your back on Muriel Spark
“We’re
the Only Colored People Here” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Another novel chapter disguised as a short story
and included in anthologies, but all the parts of a short story are there.
Brroks uses her skills as a poet to distill all of the work of a story into a
vivid scene. I use it as an example of how poets teach us a lot when they write
prose. Probably more than prose writers can teach poets when they enter into
verse.
“To
Da-duh, In Memoriam” by Paule Marshall
Story as memoir, or memoir as story, executed
with the utmost craft.
“The
Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
The ultimate example of the “unreliable
narrator” and how it can be used to devastating effect.
“Bang Bang You’re Dead” by Muriel Spark
Another splendid Spark conceit: people sitting
in a room watching home movies. Each reel of film provokes a memory that helps
to tell the story behind each shot in the movie. Nothing is ever as simple as
it really seems.
“And Come From Miles Around” by Connie Willis
I love this story because it’s about perceiving
things and noticing things that everyone else takes for granted. It is a story
about being a writer in which a writer never appears. Willis is known these
days for her big-getting-bigger novels, but her brilliance is most apparent in
her shorter works.
“The
Cat and Mouse in Partnership” by the Brothers Grimm
I first read this Grimm fairy tale as an
undergraduate and I still find it to be a near-perfect model of folktale as
story. “And that is the way of the world.”
“Never
Meet Again” by Algis Budrys
I use this one because it’s one of my favorite
“parallel universe” stories. You can count on Budrys to find the deeper human
dimension to almost any science fictional concept.
“The
Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield
This story so splendidly models and balances all
the traditional elements of a short story, it would be shame not to use it in a
writing class. A lit class would after all sorts of perceived symbolism here,
but the power of the story is in its perfect plain-ness. It is completely out
in the open and brilliant.
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London
I’ve used this classic story to illustrate how a
short story can resolve itself without the protagonist’s success. After all
these years it remains a chilling (pun intended) finale.
“The
Fantasy Writer’s Assistant” by Jeffrey Ford
It’s so difficult to find stories that
accurately depict the life and activity of a writer, I grabbed this one the
moment it was published in Fantasy and
Science Fiction. It accomplishes the first goal, and neatly illuminates the
nature of fiction by the end of the story.
“My
First Time” by Drazen Bell (Gregory Bell, former student)
Greg Bell attended the first short story class I
ever taught, so of course I wanted to include his story in my class when it was
published. It effectively camouflages its structure in a breezy narration,
focuses on the most mundane of matters and defies you to find it uninteresting.
“The
Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin
“Think
Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly
I paired these stories in my Science Fiction
Writing Workshop and they worked so successfully together, I figured I’d try
them in my short story class. The pair demonstrate how literature is in a
conversation with itself. The Godwin story illustrates an effective strategy
for manipulating a reader’s perceptions of what constitutes the “cold
equations” of the universe. The Kelly story addresses our own sense of identity
and uniqueness: the “equations” aren’t cold, but we can be.
“The
Catbird Seat” by James Thurber
“The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber
I went to Thurber because I wanted more humor in
the stories we read in class. The oddest thing we discovered is that humor
often doesn’t survive scrutiny. With Thurber, humor is most often a product of
voice and though both these stories have major flaws if we look at them
structurally, they are still great fun to read.
“The
Riddle” by Walter De La Mare
This is one of the oddest stories I’ve used in a
class and one of the oddest I’ve ever read, period. It breaks several of the
rules that a class like mine tries to outline, but either in spite of or
because of its rule-breaking, it creates a powerfully disturbing atmosphere
that never lets go. Never.
“The
Novella Race” by Pamela Sargent
A funny story treating the literalized metaphor
of competition among writers. What if the writing of novellas was an
established Olympic event? Years before NaNoWriMo made this sort of thing less
metaphorical.
“The
Goldin Boys” by Joseph Epstein
“The
Count and the Princess” by Joseph Epstein
I wanted to find stories that took place in
recognizable Chicago neighborhoods and address some real problems faced by
people growing up in a world that might
be familiar to some of my students. Epstein taught Freshman Writing for many
years, and his concerns for clarity and precision are joined with a profound
desire to find dignity in every little action and gesture.
“Madame
Zilensky and the King of Finland” by Carson McCullers
I wanted to find a McCullers story that a.) did
not take place in the South, b.) was funny and c.) had that odd kind of
ambiguous reversal that marks so many of her works. So much depends upon a dog
walking backwards, sometimes.
“The
Circular Ruins” by Jorge Luis Borges
“Everything
and Nothing” by Jorge Luis Borges
“The
Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges
There is no way that I can describe the genius
of Borges in a few sentences. I won’t even try. Why I try to introduce Borges
to my classes is that I want to show them that you can write about the most
metaphysical of subjects (reality and the nature of identity) through the
simple specificity of places and people
“Pump
Six” by Paolo Bacigalupi
Because it begins so deceptively simple and it
ends so powerfully. This is the story I point to when I want to show aspiring
writers who and what they’re competing with. Novelists will be relieved to know
that Bacigalupi is best in the shorter form. Don’t get me wrong: his novels are
great. But his stories are masterpieces, “Pump Six” most of all.
“Kirinyaga”
by Mike Resnick
Resnick’s skills as a storyteller are apparent
throughout this story, but the main reason I picked it for my short story class
(as well as for my science fiction writing class) is that his narrator, who is
also his protagonist, is an intelligent, likeable, sly and memorable character
who is also justifying his performaning an act most readers will find
abominable. I ask my students, “How do you get away with that?” “Do you ‘get
away’ with that? And why?"
“Speech Sounds” by Octavia Butler
Science fiction fans are disappointed when this
story is chosen over Butler’s “Blood Child” for selection in major anthologies.
I’m not. Every sentence sizzles with anger and frustration, and yet the story
is anything but despairing. She does a number of very daring things for a short
story author to attempt. Contemporary readers will think the science-fictional “concept”
here is the devastating virus and the post-apocalyptic landscape in which
Butler’s story takes place. What’s truly “sfnal” here is that Butler’s story “about”
language is a meditation upon language
and questions its boundaries in ways that make more allegedly sophisticated
works appear anemic and superficial in comparison.
“And Now the News” by Theodore Sturgeon
I can pick a dozen Sturgeon stories to use in a
writing class, for a dozen different reasons. But I believe the one common
element you would find within the diversity of his ideas, structures and characters
is this: voice. His narrators are always in control of the story, and always
directly address you, as if you were sitting across the table from them, in a
café or dining room. This one, which addresses some aspects of suburban life
seemed appropriate in a class that I teach at several suburban campuses. It
still delivers a powerful kick at the end.
