I have a confession to make: over the past few years, I’ve been reading more short story collections than novels. If I were to run the numbers on the proportion of story collections versus novels I’ve reviewed on my other website, SmallPressPicks.com, I’m betting the story collections would have an edge.
What, I wonder, does this say about me? That age is shortening my attention span, turning me into an ever-more-impatient literary wanderer? That I have somehow circled back, with an even greater sense of fascination and enchantment, to my childhood obsession with miniatures? Who knows?
What I can say—what I take great delight in—is that wonderful story collections are coming out all the time, despite the reluctance of many publishers, especially big publishers, to take them on. (Novels, I’ve learned, tend to sell far more than most story collections.) For the continuing abundance and variety of story anthologies, small presses deserve much of the thanks. And in this blog post, I want to recap some of the small-press collections I’ve recommended over the past several months. You can click on the links to read the full reviews.
Jeff Fearnside’s Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air
This collection is rich in so many ways: in its deep explorations of diverse lives and experiences; in its immersion in place, which often becomes a character itself; in the subtle surprises of several tales—surprises that, retrospectively, feel completely earned and natural.
But one of my favorite aspects of the book is the way it explores the solo mission—certain characters’ efforts to find their way, largely alone, through difficult periods or situations in their lives.
Jodi Paloni’s They Could Live with Themselves
An oft-repeated criticism of small towns is that too many residents have an unsavory and insatiable interest in the lives of their neighbors, an interest that no amount of acreage—geographical, emotional, or social—can discourage. One of the many strengths of Jodi Paloni’s collection is how it acknowledges a corollary truth: the impossibility of fully understanding the experiences or realities of others—sometimes, even those with whom we share a roof. By placing us in the lives of residents of one fictional community, Paloni honors, with great compassion and insight, both private realities and the ways in which individuals do—or don’t—connect with others.
Kristine Ong Muslim’s Age of Blight
“What if the end of man is not caused by some cataclysmic event, but by the nature of humans themselves?” This is the central question posed by this dark yet captivating collection of speculative short stories. The stories’ answers to this question are as varied as they are troubling and, at times, they are disturbingly plausible.
Margaret Malone’s People Like You
A hilarious, wonderfully strange, and occasionally heartbreaking collection. Malone immerses readers deeply in the desires, uncertainties, and difficulties faced by each character, including a woman who is trying, unsuccessfully, to conceive a child; a middle schooler who is both fascinated with, and horrified by, her emerging sexuality; and a seventeen-year-old who seems as uncertain about marriage as she is about the man she’s just become engaged to.
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If you end up reading any of these collections, I hope that you enjoy them, and I’d love to hear what you think!
