Short Stories
In preparation for the short story collection I’m sketching out, I’ll be reading as many collections as I can. I’ve recently finished Honored Guest, by Joy Williams. I’m currently reading The Emigrants, by W.G. Sebald. Coming in the mail is I Sailed with Magellan, by Stuart Dybek. Also on order is a selection of Chekhof’s stories, edited by Richard Ford. As you can see, there is no real structure to my investigation. I will simply read what occurs to me to read, likely in order of occurrence.
That said, I’m very open to suggestions. Is there something I absolutely can’t do without? I may have already read it, but I might like to revisit some collections. Jesus’ Son, for instance, I’ll no doubt re-read for the umpteenth time.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
have you read this Adam Haslett book:
http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Here-Today-Show-Book/dp/0385509529/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1221161037&sr=11-1
I think we have talked about it before.
I love it.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Ordered it.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Somerset Maugham. Particularly “Honolulu,” though there are other good ones (and many bad ones). He makes little effort at economy, so they’re a good antidote for the tight little stories that are so much in favor these days. Also, they’re often terribly, terribly racist, you can’t help but sit up and take notice.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Stories that are collected:
Love & Hydrogen by Jim Shepherd is a collection of stories I liked. I do not care if they are good. I contain good sentiment toward the stories. I read books.
Rick Bass, The Hermit, is oddly very good. He is a little known Lish person. He wrote many stories for the Quarterly when there was a Quarterly.
Richard Ford is vile. I do not understand his presence. But I do like Rock Springs, nonetheless. Or I remember reading Rock Springs and thinking this is a very well done story. Now I am wondering if I like well done stories or not. If a story is well done, maybe I have been properly manipulated into liking the story and it is not good.
I read last year Gringos and Other Stories by Michael Rumaker and this story collection is very old fashioned but I liked it very much. I received this note from David Rich regarding something I wrote on my blog. I have been meaning to write David Rich back for his interesting e-mail, but maybe by posting it here David Rich will google himself and discover your blog and he will have interesting things to say to you, Shya Scanlon.
Rumaker / Olson / Dahlberg‏
From: David Rich (dave_m_rich@yahoo.com)
Medium riskYou may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as unsafe
Sent: Wed 1/23/08 4:05 PM
To: matt_d_briggs@hotmail.com
Matt,
I was happy to read your review of Michael Rumaker’s
short story collection Gringos on your blog.
Rumaker is a friend of mine (I met him at the 2006
Charles Olson Conference and I’m publishing an excerpt
from a play of his in a new literary annual). He wrote
the stories that appear in Gringos when he was still
an undergraduate at Black Mountain, where he did,
indeed, study under Charles Olson. Olson died in 1970,
so I never met him. But many of my friends and
colleagues were close with Olson, either as friends,
students, or both.
In fact, Vincent Ferrini, with whom I gave a reading a
few years back, (the man to whom the Maximus poems
were originally addressed, infamously Letter No. 5),
just passed away this past Christmas Eve.
As you mention on your blog, it may appear difficult
to find the influence of Olson on Rumaker’s work. Keep
in mind, however, that when Olson taught fiction
students at Black Mountain (unlike his poetry
students) he wasn’t teaching them his projective
method (much of which he had yet to hash out when he
left Black Mountain in, I believe, 1953). The model he
used for fiction students was Edward Dahlberg, author
of the groundbreaking and brutal coming of age novel
Bottom Dogs, published, I think, in 1930. (Olson and
Dahlberg were very close, having married sisters).
The best review of Michael Rumaker’s fiction is the
study by Leverett T. Smith: Black Mountain Dossier No.
6, subtitled Eroticizing the Nation. After Rumaker
wrote Gringos and the novel Butterfly (about his young
affair with Yoko Ono) Michael came to terms with his
homosexuality and wrote a series of novels dealing
with gay themes, the best being: A Day and A Night at
the Baths. What Smith picked up (that I didn’t notice
the first read through) was the purposefully stagey
character of the language of Gringos, a self-conscious
macho drag that Michael himself was putting on when he
was young and writing it. The Marine in Exit 3 is the
character Smith spends the most time explicating. As
far as the publication history of Gringos, it was
published first in the UK by Penguin, then Grove
(under Sorrentino) in the US, then in the 90s by a
small academic press in a limited run, and now talks
are underway, I heard, between Rumaker and a large
press to reissue it in the next year.
I was happy to read on your blog and the blog of one
of your publishers, Clear Cut, that there’s a hearty
scene in Washington State. The new annual I’m putting
together draws a number of New American Poets (re: the
Donald Allen anthology) together who are still going,
as well as the Ethnopoetic / Deep Image set, and
younger post-LANGUAGE poets. We’re also putting
together a print literary newsletter, in post-modern
homage to the mimeo-mags of the 1970s, that we’ll
circulate prior to the annual’s release.
As for fiction writers, we’ve pulled in Jonathan
Bayliss (who has written four mammoth high-modernist
novels in the vein of Robert Musil and Hermann Broch
– Bayliss, too, was a friend of Olson’s) and Peter
Anastas, father of the novelist Benjamin Anastas, and
of punk / hardcore musician Jonathan Anastas (of DYS
fame). (I noticed an old DYS poster on Rich Jensen’s
blog.)
Anyway, warm regards.
Dave
October 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D’Ambrosio
December 9th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Hey Shya, I read more collections than novels and here are some I hope you might like:
1) Carrying the Torch by Brock Clark
Drown by Junot Diaz
2) The Half-Mammals of Dixie by George Singleton
3) Poachers by Tom Franklin
4) Twin Studies by Stacey Richter
5) Sam the Cat by Matthew Klam
6) Flying Leap by Judy Budnitz
7) All Things, All At Once by Lee Abbott
9) Venus Drive by Sam Lipsyte
10) I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay
11) War by Candlelight by Daniel Alarcon
Hope you enjoy a few –
December 31st, 2008 at 8:21 am
hey…
You need more rest i think…