It’s funny how you can resist something for years (like reading short stories) until triggers in your life force you to embrace them (like university subjects), and you find yourself wondering how you could ever have been so dim. I say this about short stories because until I read Margo Lanagan’s latest collection of short fiction, Black Juice, in January 2006, I didn’t understand how to respect nor connect with short stories. I couldn’t grasp how you were supposed to be okay with meeting new characters and delving into their lives only to leave them after a few pages. But after reading the first story in Black Juice, ‘Singing My Sister Down’, my shallow theory instantly evaporated into the air from which it was first plucked. I read the story quickly, gulping to reach the end to confront the looming sadness. When I read the last word all I could do was sit silently, stare at the book in my lap, feel miserably lonely and seriously consider a good cry. That sense of intense melancholy, delivered to me over just a few pages, is still clear in my mind. Last Saturday, on a whim, I bought Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link, an award-winning short fiction writer. After a few days with the book by my side, I’m absolutely hooked on Link’s intoxicating style of writing that tells intimate stories with child-like innocence and belief in magic and dreams. I’ve since stumbled across the World Fantasy Awards website where I noticed Margo Lanagan and Kelly Link were both nominated for the 2005 Short Fiction category. Lanagan won, but I’m pleased to have been introduced by chance to two such fine female writers in the early days of my new found fascination with short stories.
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Ah yes… the good short story and why it works. Now there’s a good topic. These won’t speak to all readers, but Colm Toibin, the brilliant Margaret Atwood and the delectable Alice Munro have all contributed to the short story book collection recentyly and they’ve all been absorbing. It’s the economy, the tautness, the intensity, that makes a short story so rewarding, I think.
Ah, Margaret Atwood. I’m with you on that one, Rosemary. I to am only a recent convert to the power of short story (although I’ve been a fan of Atwood’s fiction for a lot longer!), but I do remember enjoying them when I was younger (David McRobbie, Paul Jennings-style…and there was one called The Blue Dress? Female author…)
It’s such an extremely clever style of writing when done well, to condense characters and plot into a few pages, and still have the reader hooked.
Thanks for the tip Frances, I might hunt one of those books down. As a side note, I recently read the ‘One Book, Many Brisbanes’ anthology from last year. Some of them were actually quite good and it’s nice to be able to identify with the location as your own back yard.
sorry to hog the replies… but yes indeed, One Book One Brisbane was good quality stuff, and it was a pity the Brisbane City Council didn’t print it iin greater numbers but putting it in libraries was terrific. It’s on again, I believe, this year. Blue Dress short story may have been Carmel Bird????
Libby Gleeson!!?? Maybe that was it, that name just came to me.
Yes, I actually borrowed the One Book Many Brisbanes anthology from Brisbane Square library and probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise, so it was definitely a good move. This year I plan to put pen to paper and offer my little slice of Vegas up to be judged… it is a really good initiative.