Novels let you settle in. They give you time to hang up your clothes, do a little sight-seeing, enjoy a few home-cooked dinners. They take you out for scrambled eggs and pancakes in the morning and wave you goodbye from the platform. Short stories, though, can be inhospitable. With their clipped length, they kick you out just when you’re getting used to your cousin’s lumpy futon.
But (to belabor this metaphor), sometimes short trips are the best ones — the most memorable. Short stories are like a day trip to Paris. Exhausting, sure. But you still get to see the Eiffel Tower and eat a croissant. (Metaphor… finally… over.) If you don’t read short stories, you could be missing out; some of our greatest writers do their best work with the short story form. Alice Munro, Ann Beattie, and Lorrie Moore all fall into this category. And some short stories made big splashes when they first came out in Vogue or The New Yorker, shocking readers or drawing their attention to an important issue. Years later, they’re still talked about in English classes and book clubs. | via
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