A few days into the month - and after seeing the excellent coverage of individual stories elsewhere - I've decided that I'll celebrate Short Story Month by focusing primarily on short story collections. I'm a sucker for short story collections. My bookshelves are a testament to this fact. It is no secret that bookstores are my church and I find myself browsing any one of LA's fine bookstores at least twice a week. While I'm typically in the store to soak up the vibe and get a bit of my own writing done, I usually have one book I'm seeking out. One reason I've come at all. Never is a short story collection on this list. They are always purchased in a fit of abandon at the end of my bookstore visit. Sort of like the candy and batteries and air fresheners at the check-out line. Just when you think you've purchased enough, you get roped in by the last-minute sell.
The difference for me though, is that short story collections aren't a last minute sell. Unlike the candy bars and trash mags and scented canisters (what are those things?) that beckon from the check-out line, I try desperately not to purchase short story collections. Why? I already have so many! There is something about a short story - something so packed and economical - that I love. There's no room to belabor the point in a story. It either starts off with a bang or it doesn't. I like to see how writers handle this strict edict of the medium with varying degrees of success. I especially like to see how long-winded novelists handle the task. What better way to meditate on the short story than to have umpteen collections on hand whenever I need a fix? My collection of Short Story collections reminds me of my ever-growing collection of umpteen types of tea: always varied, always different (sometimes in wholly surprising ways), very good for you, and you can never, simply never, have enough. Variety, spice of life and all that.
During the Fiction: Jumping off the Page panel (Gary Shteyngart, Chris Bohjalian, Peter Orner & Marianne Wiggins in conversation with David Kipen) this past weekend at the LA Times Book Festival, the subject of short stories came up a few times. The first question during the Q & A was directed at Marianne Wiggins (who sat on 2004 National Book Award committee) about why a short story collection hasn't won the National Book Award in a long time. She said that the year she judged, there were two short story collections that were finalists (a quick peek at the NBA site reveals these collections are Joan Silber's Ideas of Heaven and Kate Walbert's Our Kind), but in the end, "We couldn't find the narrative weight in a short story collection." Which upset me greatly. Orner followed-up to say that is such a shame, as fewer short story collections are being published every day. Stories, yes. In the New Yorker, Harper's, and the like. But short story collections seem to get short-shrifted in today's world of multi-part book deals and so on.
During the Fiction: Modern Myth panel (Steve Erickson, Aimee Bender, Ben Ehrenreich & Deborah Eisenberg in conversation with David Ulin), the subject of short stories came up again. When asked by Ulin about their process and how they plan a book, Erickson said "I actually need more planning with a short story." He went on to say that while novels give you the room to explore, make mistakes and get yourself back on track, there simply is no room for that kind of fooling around in a story. You can't write your way through it, as in a novel, and wonder where it's all leading. With a story, you have to know where it's going pretty quickly or you're finished. It won't work. You don't have the luxury of 50 pages to write yourself out of your mess.
These two recent discussions highlight for me precisely what I love and what I fear about short stories: I love that they require a condensed writing, focused to create a certain effect in the reader. I love that they get to the point. I fear that stories will receive less and less attention over time, if Wiggins' comments are any indication. I must say this surprises me -- and always has -- for one basic (obvious?) reason evident in our daily lives: lack of time. As everything is shortened again and again to still make noise in our too-busy i'll-read-it-on-my-crackberry world, as companies struggle to get their tidbits into our already full brains, I find it shocking that short story sales are in decline. Little bite-sized novels seem the perfect antidote to crazed, time-pressed readers everywhere. Is it, as with so many other things, a matter of what's marketed? What's advertised? What gets the most noise? If so, are publishers to blame? Or, as Wiggins suggests, are short story writers to blame for not creating collections that contain enough "narrative weight" to be considered alongside novels?
It is this reason, actually, that I love collections of short stories almost more than single stories in literary journals or magazines. I like to see the arcs, the themes, the collective resonance of several stories grouped together. The best collections, I would argue, deliver these elements in spades. This month, I'll point out some of my favorite collections in an effort to bring more attention them and the divine pleasures they offer.
Of course, to do so, I might have to purchase a few more collections this month...for "research purposes."
