Short-story volumes let readers sample a long list of authors

By Irene Wanner;
Special to The Seattle Times

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Well, they said, just when a story gets going, it stops. Just when we begin to know the characters, conflict and setting, we have to start all over again with the next writer's characters, conflict and setting. Yet this same group will read a collection by a single writer without complaint (but also without the apparent joy they voice for long novels).

So, I still don't get it. If Americans truly are rushed off their feet, if our attention spans are dwindling, if life is such a stressful mix of rat race and numbing routine, then shouldn't a marvelous variety of compact pieces and praiseworthy prose fit our bill better than blockbuster potboilers or 600-page Russian/European/British classics whose slow pace rivals Seattle's traffic?

"The O. Henry Prize Stories 2003" Laura Furman, series editor Prize Jury: David Guterson, Diane Johnson and Jennifer Egan Anchor Books, $14 (paper) "The Best American Short Stories 2003" Walter Mosley, editor; Katrina Kenison, series editor Houghton Mifflin, $13 (paper)

Stories are short, not shallow. Often, they're compressed in time, place and language. They ask readers to work their brains a bit, to be in the moment, for the moment is brief. In length, stories dwell on the poetry end of literature's spectrum; words are at a premium and, frequently, ideas aren't simply escapist.

Few rogue submarines, robot terminators or evil-empire doctors/lawyers/whatevers stalk the pages of The New Yorker, The Atlantic or the many wonderful literary magazines from which each prize collection's choices are drawn.

So it is with "The O. Henry Prize Stories" and "The Best American Short Stories," which appear every autumn, less in competition with each other than fighting for their lives against the cotton candy that constitutes the best sellers. I invite long-novel lovers to pick up either book and give each short story a try. Like it? Read it. Don't? Move on.

You won't go away hungry and, along with big names, you'll make new friends. In the 2003 "O. Henry," for instance, the new series editor, Laura Furman, picked all sorts of treats.

William Kittredge's autobiographically inspired, two-page piece, "Kissing," visits France, while Denis Johnson's imaginative "Train Dreams," which exceeds 50 pages, follows a pioneer's experiences in Idaho and Washington territories. Both authors evoke place and love well, yet their approaches are opposites.

Two writers who again explore terrain they have been drawn to before are Tim O'Brien, who revisits Vietnam's effects on a marriage in "What Went Wrong," and Evan S. Connell, who follows up his well-known novels about Mr. and Mrs. Bridge with another comfortable couple who can't quite relate in "Election Eve."

For far-flung settings, Anthony Doerr's "The Shell Collector" uses Kenya as its backdrop, while Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sets her powerful story, "The American Embassy," in Nigeria.

In "Swept Away," the wind blasting Scotland's Shetland Islands becomes a character itself in T. Coraghessan Boyle's richly imagined tale. Each story's characters and language are crafted vividly, yet none replicates the others, and every one offers readers ideas for reflection.

As does Marjorie Kemper's "God's Goodness," in which a Chinese immigrant's blind faith in a beneficent Christian god is gradually tempered by a teenager with terminal cancer. This heartbreaking, sweet story, which compresses months into pages, is skillfully balanced between the bleak prognosis and each character's complex methods of coping.

Another story that takes inspiration from illness, Ann Harleman's "Meanwhile," instead finds the woman whose husband, D, is dying from MS, less in a state of grace than helpless rage. Support groups, euphemisms, upbeat inspirational sayings all rub her the wrong way, and at the same time, illuminate for readers a painfully realistic portrait. Who's to say anger isn't healthy sometimes?

The "O. Henry's" new editor breathed new life into this year's volume. Unfortunately, "Best American Short Stories" is beginning to suffer from sameness.

Although Mary Yukari Waters' "Rationing" is wonderful, both this story and last year's selection were set in Japan, with similar themes. Jess Row is back, as are ZZ Packer, Louise Erdrich, E.L. Doctorow, Edwidge Danticat and Dan Chaon.

This is not to say these aren't fine writers with terrific stories, but they lack the freshness of something utterly new.

No matter. Been there? Done that? Then skip to the dynamite science-fiction story by Ryan Harty, the gritty take on life as a correctional officer by Susan Straight, the quest on Haiti by Marilene Phipps, the short-order cook's need to get beyond flipping burgers by Rand Richards Cooper.

In fact, I'd recommend going directly to writers you don't know or haven't encountered here in recent years. Then visit the contributors' notes, where listings of the authors' other writings can steer you to works you might not know. You could easily come away with ... well, perhaps new ideas for those long novels book groups love.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company