Short Story Month - Guest Post - John McNally

Why does anyone write short stories, I’d like to know.  Seriously.  At AWP in Austin, after several drinks, I was talking to my buddy Dan Chaon about this very thing.  Dan’s the author of Among the Missing, which is, for my money, the best collection of short stories published this decade.  I’m not joking.  If you haven’t read this book, stop reading my nonsense and run to your local store, posthaste.  I shit you not.  Anyway, our conversation was about how we (he and I) spend far more time per page writing a short story than we spend per page on a novel, and yet no publisher (or almost none) wants to publish a collection.  A collection sells far fewer copies than a novel; it’s nearly impossible to get a collection reviewed; and people will tell you, time and again, that if they’re going to read fiction at all, they’d rather read something that they can sink their teeth into than spend time reading something that they can finish while on the train or eating a slice of toast.  Our conclusion?  We couldn’t afford to write short stories.

            And yet I love them.  I love reading them, and I love writing them.  A good short story is like a fist: it can open slowly to reveal a welcoming hand, or it can knock your sad ass to the ground.  It’s infinitely complex.  And when every aspect of the story comes together (language; character; plot), as in Stuart Dybek’s “Pet Milk” or John Cheever’s “Goodbye, My Brother,” it’s a visceral experience for the reader, much more so, in my experience, than reading a novel, even a really good one, where I’m likely to forget minor characters or significant details by the book’s end.

            When I first began writing, I used to wonder why some writers I admired quit writing or quit publishing, but I no longer wonder.  These days, I’m more inclined to wonder why more writers don’t quit.  To quote Hustle & Flow, it’s tough out there for a pimp.  One of my favorite short story writers, Rick Demarinis, is mostly (criminally) out of print, but you can still get his selected stories, Borrowed Hearts.  These are, by and large, darkly comic tales, a few of which feature a man who writes romance novels under a pseudonym while a woman hired by the publisher to portray the romance writer is sent out to mall bookstores to meet her fans.  Wonderful stuff.

            And what about Ralph Lombreglia?  For a while, you couldn’t sneeze without seeing a story by him in places like the Atlantic or Best American Short Stories, and yet his two books are out of print.  His wildly inventive collection Men Under Water is well worth checking out, if you can find a used copy.  His were those rare stories that made me want to sit down and start writing.  There are no pyrotechnics here, no meta-anything – just damned good stories.

            Marly Swick is another writer whose work you saw everywhere you turned.  I know Marly, so I’d like to give a shout-out and plead for her to write more stories.  Fortunately, her two collections, A Hole in the Language and The Summer Before the Summer of Love, are still in print.  Read the title story “A Hole in the Language” for what Marly could do with a short story.  It’s one of the best stories about grief that I know.

            As for other stories and collections, my tastes are all over the place, time-wise.  I’m a huge Paul Bowles fan.  He writes in a genre that can best be called “Americans Abroad Literary Horror.”  And Andre Dubus’ story “Townies.”  Wow, what a great frickin’ story.  Two points of view (which I normally don’t like) and a murder.  Or John Updike’s “The Lovely Troubled Daughters of Our Old Crowd.”  I read this story to my students every year, and I would suggest to you to read it aloud as well – not once, not twice, but three or four times.  The rhythms of the sentences are gorgeous.  You can find it in his collection Trust Me.  A first-person plural tour-de-force is Kent Haruf’s “Private Debts / Public Holdings,” a story that first appeared in the old Grand Street and was later reprinted in Best American Short Stories, edited by Ann Beattie.  This story never fails to raise the hair on my neck with its last line.  More recently, Scott Snyder’s Voodoo Heart is a collection that has blown me away.  Again, old-fashioned storytelling at its best.  When I read his Depression-era short story about a man trying to follow a blimp that is, he believes, transporting his beloved inside, I can’t help feeling envy.  I’d have loved to have written that story!  Does anyone read Lost Generation writer Kay Boyle anymore?  This woman was the Joyce Carol Oates of her day in terms of output.  One of my favorites is “Astronomer’s Wife,” a story, though written in 1936, that could have been written today.  What about the Canadian writer Barbara Gowdy?  Can we celebrate Canadians during Short Story Month?  Her story “Disneyland" is a harrowing account of a family spending their “vacation” in a bomb shelter.  It’s also the opening chapter of her wonderful novel-in-stories, Falling Angels.  Speaking of Canadians…Margaret Atwood’s “Hairball” is as macabre as anything by Edgar Allan Poe – a great piece of revenge literature.  You may never eat truffles again.  You can find this gem in Wilderness Tips.

            I love when I read a great story and then, years later, become friends with the writer.  This has happened several times in my life, most recently with Darren DeFrain.  I first read his short story “Big Mike” in Natural Bridge, which I was reviewing for Literary Magazine Review.  I wrote, in part, “Big Mike, the alcoholic, is the story’s foul-mouthed narrator, and while the reader may not like him, it's possible for the reader to empathize with him along the way and, even, be amused by his observations.”  I wrote that probably ten years ago, and the collection in which this story appears, Inside & Out (Main Street Rag), has just been published and is waiting for you to order it.

            In this brave (read: chickenshit) new world of corporatized publishing, the contemporary writer is forced to worry about things like how book sales dictate whether or not you’re likely to get another book contract, which forces said writer to make choices about which projects are more “commercially viable,” more likely to get reviews, more likely to blah-blah-blah.  In a just world, everyone would know Rick DeMarinis’ short stories, Ralph Lombreglia’s two collections wouldn’t be out of print, and Darren DeFrain’s book would have appeared many years ago.  But it’s not a just world, is it?  So, dig out your favorite stories and press them into the hands of people who may not normally read short fiction.  Buy someone a new short story collection for a gift.  Let’s prove to these corporate mother-crunchers that they’re wrong.

 

 

John McNally is author of two novels and two story collections.  His collection GHOSTS OF CHICAGO appeared last October.  His third novel, AFTER THE WORKSHOP, will be published by Counterpoint early next year.

Comments

[John McNally]

I shouldn't have said that Ralph Lombreglia's book was that "rare book" that made me want to sit down and write. There are thousands of books that make me want to sit down and write. But I remember his stories, in particular, having that effect on me.

[Scott Smith]

Coleman turns 14 tomorrow, so Robinson grabbed a copy of the Updike collection.

Lombreglia remains one of my favorite writers.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Thomas Brown]

I remember talking to an aspiring novelist from one of my fiction workshops a couple years ago: I told the guy about how I have no interest in writing a novel – that I would just like to be able to write a decent short story. He looked at me like I was crazy, and then told me all the globbety gook about how there was no money in it etc. “I know”, I told him. “I just want to be able to write a decent short story”.

For some crazy reason I’ve always like the short story. I read collections where others read novels. I dust through used book stores for old copies of the O’Henry awards from the 50’s and 60’s. I read the good, the bad, and the ugly.

If nothing else it’s more interesting than taking up golf.