The Dowry – Guy de Maupassant – Endings
"The Dowry" by Guy de Maupassant is a humorous piece that brings the reader into the lives of a newlywed couple. Maupassant sets the tone from the beginning with the…
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February 17, 2011
Axis – Alice Munro – Fragments and Time
"Axis" by Alice Munro is a story that breaks off into multiple narratives, which like her story "Corrie," span across decades. The story revolves around three characters: Grace, Avie, and…
February 10, 2011
Something Pretty, Something Beautiful – Eric Barnes – Maturity and Time
"Something Pretty, Something Beautiful" by Eric Barnes reads like A Clockwork Orange set in Tacoma, Washington minus Burgess' style. The story is full of teenage violence, angst, and a desire…
January 28, 2011
Always Raining Somewhere, Said Jim Johnson – John Edgar Wideman – Setting and Sentimentality
"Always Raining Somewhere, Said Jim Johnson" by John Edgar Wideman is a story that revisits a writer's experience at the Iowa Writing Workshop. Fiction? Nonfiction? It doesn't matter. While Wideman…
January 25, 2011
The Years of My Birth – Louise Erdrich – Melodrama and Predictablity
When reading short stories, I find it helpful to approach the reading on two levels. First, as a form of entertainment. I enjoy reading and find short stories to be…
January 17, 2011
The King of Norway – Amos Oz – Outsiders
Amos Oz's story, "The King of Norway" provides a good lesson on point of view. The story begins:On our kibbutz, Kibbutz Yekhat, there lived a man, Zvis Provizor, a short…
January 14, 2011
The “Art Of” Series
I've read The Art of Subtext, by Charles Baxter and found it a smart, well-written book that examines fiction in a way that broadens a writer's perspective. I sought the…
January 11, 2011
Escape from Spiderhead – George Saunders – Creativity and Social Commentary
It's easy to appreciate George Saunders creativity. The stories that I've read by him are always somewhat fantastic and otherworldly. Usually, he has a point to make as well. In…
January 5, 2011
Midnight in Dostoevsky – Don Delillo – Revisiting the Overused
If you have taught or taken a creative writing workshop, then you have undoubtedly encountered a number of stories set on college campuses. Write what you know, professors tell young…
December 31, 2010
Hammer and Sickle – Don DeLillo – Current Events
What I appreciate about Don DeLillo's story "Hammer and Sickle" is the immediacy of it. The character, Jerold Bradway, is in a minimum security prison for white-collar criminals after being…
December 8, 2010