The myth about Sherwood Anderson—that in the middle of a successful advertising career he repudiated the moneymaking ethics and the regimentation of business in order to realize himself as a writer—has become part of our literary tradition, an ironic reversal… Read More ›
One of the most penetrating and riveting of the 12 stories in Tobias Wolff’s 1981 collection In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, “Hunters in the Snow” was selected as the title story of the British edition that appeared… Read More ›
Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” is an often-anthologized metafictional short story that provides, among many surprises, an important literary representation of the Vietnam War and the trauma it inflicted upon individuals. The story is part commentary… Read More ›
With the increasing impact of the gay rights movement and acceptance of gays in mainstream society, gay studies and gay literature are emerging as respected fields. Defining gay literature is sometimes difficult, given the frequent vague and subtle references to… Read More ›
The frequently anthologized Hills Like White Elephants first printed in transition magazine in 1927 is often read and taught as a perfect illustration of Ernest Hemingway’s minimalist, self-proclaimed “iceberg” style of writing: In much of Hemingway’s fiction what is said in… Read More ›
An anonymous Boston Globe reviewer once described Joy Williams as “Annie Dillard bumping into Cotton Mather.” She is also routinely compared with such contemporary writers as Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, as well as the film… Read More ›
Kurt Vonnegut is celebrated more for his longer fiction than for his short stories. Nonetheless, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron,” originally published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science in October 1961, and currently available in the author’s collection, Welcome to the… Read More ›
Most of D’Arcy McNickle’s short fiction was published posthumously in a 1992 collection titled “The Hawk Is Hungry” and Other Stories, yet McNickle is still seen as an important and influential person in American Indian literary studies. His most widely… Read More ›
An innovative and oft-anthologized story that demonstrates the arbitrariness of any author’s choice of an ending, “Happy Endings” offers six different endings from which the reader may choose. “Happy Endings” was first published in the Canadian collection Murder in the… Read More ›
Sherwood Anderson’s story “Hands” might be called a portrait. Like a formal painted portrait, it not only depicts Wing Biddlebaum, the central figure, as he exists but also uses background props to reveal his past and define his circumstances. Wing’s… Read More ›
Literary small-town life at its most positive is crafted in ways that celebrate community, collaboration, and the gentle accommodation of vulnerability and eccentricities. Ring Lardner’s “Haircut,” however, once referred to as “one of the cruelest pieces of American fiction” (Hardwick… Read More ›
Written in 1892, Henry James‘s short story “Greville Fane” depicts the troubled and tumultuous relationship between a popular novelist, Greville Fane, and her two ungrateful children, Lady Ethel Luard and Leolin. The short story begins with the narrator’s receiving news… Read More ›
By emphasizing intense archetypal imagery, Flannery O’Connor raises her short story “Greenleaf” to a complex level. O’Connor’s choice of symbolic names, her suggestion of mythological fertility cults, and her use of light and dark images all serve to raise the… Read More ›
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s widely anthologized coming-of-age tale, initially published in Greasy Lake and Other Stories, tells the story of three young men— Digby, Jeff, and an unnamed narrator—who are abruptly ushered into adulthood through a painful experience at the lake… Read More ›
“Graven Image” first appeared in the New Yorker (March 13, 1943) and then in O’Hara’s collection of short stories, Pipe Night (1945). In his review (March 18, 1945), Lionel Trilling praised O’Hara as having, “more than anyone now writing,” “the… Read More ›
In the mid-1930s, Katherine Anne Porter’s early work was attracting the favorable attention of America’s burgeoning New Critics, whose techniques of close literary analysis to this day remain useful for reading Porter’s tightly written, symbol and imageladen fiction. Her story… Read More ›
Frequently anthologized, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” exemplifies Flannery O’Connor’s southern religious grounding. The story depicts the impact of Christ on the lives of two seemingly disparate characters. One is a grandmother joining her son’s family on a… Read More ›
In a memorable contribution to her stories that use the grotesque, Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” ironically reverses the old saying that country people are good and its corollary, simple. Set in Georgia, the story features three women and a… Read More ›
Sometimes called a novella, Philip Roth’s “Goodbye, Columbus” offers a thorough introduction to some of the key themes, techniques, and character types that will populate Roth’s subsequent novels. While “Goodbye, Columbus” provides sharp social criticism, it is equally resonant on… Read More ›
Throughout Three Lives, in which “The Good Anna” appears, Gertrude Stein explores the heterosexual and lesbian relationships of three common women, Anna, Melanctha, and Lena. In her attempts to capture the thoughts and consciousness of these women, Stein uses a… Read More ›
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