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Between my third year at university and thirty years old, I penned some one hundred short stories with varying degrees of success. I considered it a learning exercise at the time and most were failures as expected, but a few were published in literary journals (I have very mixed feelings about these successes today).
Recently, I’ve returned to the form, or at least experimenting with it, and, as I’ve done so, I’ve also begun to reread some of my favorite short stories from my twenties. One, in particular, was quite exciting to revisit because its impact on me was so extreme that I’ve probably thought about it once a month since I first read it.
The short story in question is “Nobody Said Anything” by American author Raymond Carver.
“Nobody Said Anything” was published in Carver’s short story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please (1973), but first appeared earlier that year in the Seneca Review under a different title - “The Summer Steelhead”. It’s a story about communication, as was common for Carver. But this one was from a kid’s point of view as he begins to wake up to the reality that his parents will soon divorce without any regard for his feelings in the matter. The kid goes fishing and lands a steelhead with the help of another kid who then tries to lay partial claim to the catch. What ensues is a brilliant metaphor for the violence divorce inflicts on children.
Tell me: What are some of your favorite short stories (and why)? The ones you’ve never been able to stop thinking about.
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I remember reading “the lottery” in some high school English class and being fully blown away. Glad I got to read it without knowing about it beforehand
-"The Dead Past" by Asimov. I really enjoy how the stakes in the story keep building and the final reveal is outstanding. Other Asimov shorts I love are "Breeds there a man..." and the famous "Nightfall"
-"The merchant and the alchemist's gate" by Ted Chiang. The way the plot connects in a logical way is great. At the same time the story is told in such a readable way.
-"The story of your life" by Ted Chiang. Wonderful concept. It's hard to pick my favorite Ted Chiang story, another contender is "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" which made me think about the cost of letters.
Given that I don't really like scary stuff, I'm surprising myself by mentioning Man Size in Marble by Enid Nesbitt and Number 13 by M R James. They're just the right side of thrilling - Gothic more than gore, and a goose bump inducing build up of words, particularly the ending by Enid Nesbitt. Though it may be the regular M R James readings by Nunkie which have influenced me! https://www.youtube.com/user/nunkie100
For whatever reason, the short stories that leave me with some degree of existential horror tend to stick with me the most. First one that comes to mind is PKD's "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (read for a class at U of M—go blue), and then Harland Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is probably my favourite short story. I love how it is equal parts eerie ghost story and feminist manifesto. I first read it in my late teens and it’s always stayed with me.
I'm a gigantic fan of The Martian Chronicles. While some of the stories do not hold up in our futuristic world, i have always admired how Bradbury was able to take all these random short stories and craft a thoughtful and compelling novel from those pieces. It's really something special and to this day remains my favorite Ray Bradbury book.
"All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury! I read this for a middle school English class and it haunted me for so long. I felt so bad for Margot and it brought out so much emotion for me that I can still remember my reaction to it. I later got super into Flannery O'Connor and loved "Everything That Rises Must Converge" & "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," and pretty much everything by Alice Munro.
'The Lady of the House of Love' (1979) by Angela Carter for the delicacy of its atmosphere, its horror and its sadness. 'Red Nails' (1936) by Robert E. Howard – everyone’s favourite Conan story and which showed me what it means to write utterly without fear. More recently, Hemingway’s 'Big Two-Hearted River' (1925), which – like a bunch of his shorts – I began reading for study, but then couldn’t seem to stop re-reading. I think I love the stillness of this one.
My favorite short story is George Saunders’ The Red Bow. The plot is nutty but the character’s wants are understandable and the social dynamics read true… and I love Saunders’ voice!
I'll have to read this now! I love reading and writing short stories too, and have had a few published. Danielle Wood's collection of fairy tales retold as motherhood stories 'Mothers Grimm' is wonderful. Her stories Cottage and Sleep stick with me especially.
It’s hard to put my finger on what compels me about this story, but if I had to try, it would be the sense of obsession that leads to untimely death. The pursuit of fortune through that sense of neurodivergence. I’m sure we’d say these days that the little boy was autistic. But back then…
My all time favorite short story collection is Cordwainer Smith’s The Rediscovery of Man. It’s all about the languages and world building. He was the author of the CIA’s manual on psychological warfare, and there’s a sense of relentlessness infusing these stories. Scanners Live in Vain and the Ballard of Lost C’Mell are titles that surface in memory. I can even remember the opening of Scanners … “Martel was angry. He did not even adjust his blood away from anger.”
It’s all about making words do things other than the convention to illustrate times alien to us. To reveal the humanity that perseveres among the Instrumentality of Mankind.
Borges, Raymond Carver, Carlos Fuentes, Lawrence, Kafka, they all had that sense of otherworldliness in their work that i aspired to when I was younger.
I’ve only written three short stories that have been published, and in very niche street pamphlets with a print run of a few hundreds, but I still think about unpacking one, A Thousand Ways of Density, which is kind of a prose poem, into a short story collection one day. I did one follow up related to it, Sundivers, but haven’t done more.
I love The Illustrated Man as a sequence. But the story that has stuck with me for over 30 years is Whimper of Whipped Dogs by Harlan Ellison. Not that I really want to re-read it, to plum that depth of despair again.
Hey, ‘The Secret Sharer’ by Conrad pretty much fits the criterion you set out. It is, after all this is Conrad, written in beautiful language, it is very atmospheric, and it is one of the sexiest stories I’ve read. So win/win/win.
Great Question, Cole! Everything by Flannery O'Connor, but especially 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'. Katherine Mansfield's 'The Garden Party' and 'A Doll's House'. Fitzgerald's 'Winter Dreams'. William H. Gass's 'The Pederson Kid'. Harry Mathews' 'Country Cooking'. Almost anything by Hawthorne.
- Whatever Happened to the Guy Stuck in the Elevator? by Kim Young-ha
- Sawdust by Chris Offutt (that contains my favourite sequence ever in a short story. I'll post it in a comment to this comment, but please be aware it's not for the faint of heart)
- The shortest story ever written:
“Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí”,
Here to recommend Lucia Berlin's short stories in general. Only a couple of them really fall flat for me, all the rest soar. I even wrote the first draft of a feature script based off of her short story Strays, but I stupidly never got the rights to it so there is sits while, I'm under the impression, Cate Blanchette is looking for a production partner for the full collection it comes in _A Manual for Cleaning Women._ I can't argue with her taste or interest, the entire collection is high art.
I remember reading “the lottery” in some high school English class and being fully blown away. Glad I got to read it without knowing about it beforehand
My favorite short stories:
-"The Dead Past" by Asimov. I really enjoy how the stakes in the story keep building and the final reveal is outstanding. Other Asimov shorts I love are "Breeds there a man..." and the famous "Nightfall"
-"The merchant and the alchemist's gate" by Ted Chiang. The way the plot connects in a logical way is great. At the same time the story is told in such a readable way.
-"The story of your life" by Ted Chiang. Wonderful concept. It's hard to pick my favorite Ted Chiang story, another contender is "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" which made me think about the cost of letters.
The Swan, and Royal Jelly by Roald Dahl.
Flannery O'Connor's The Barber, which is underrated imo.
I'm going down this thread and making notes on stories that I need to read!
Rod Serling short stories - Immortality Clause ( I think it was titled )
Given that I don't really like scary stuff, I'm surprising myself by mentioning Man Size in Marble by Enid Nesbitt and Number 13 by M R James. They're just the right side of thrilling - Gothic more than gore, and a goose bump inducing build up of words, particularly the ending by Enid Nesbitt. Though it may be the regular M R James readings by Nunkie which have influenced me! https://www.youtube.com/user/nunkie100
For whatever reason, the short stories that leave me with some degree of existential horror tend to stick with me the most. First one that comes to mind is PKD's "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (read for a class at U of M—go blue), and then Harland Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is probably my favourite short story. I love how it is equal parts eerie ghost story and feminist manifesto. I first read it in my late teens and it’s always stayed with me.
I'm a gigantic fan of The Martian Chronicles. While some of the stories do not hold up in our futuristic world, i have always admired how Bradbury was able to take all these random short stories and craft a thoughtful and compelling novel from those pieces. It's really something special and to this day remains my favorite Ray Bradbury book.
"All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury! I read this for a middle school English class and it haunted me for so long. I felt so bad for Margot and it brought out so much emotion for me that I can still remember my reaction to it. I later got super into Flannery O'Connor and loved "Everything That Rises Must Converge" & "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," and pretty much everything by Alice Munro.
Kafka - his short stories subvert irony
“The Swimmer” by John Cheever also had a big impact on me.
There is also John Collier short stories
“The Door in the Wall” by H.G. Wells
Eleven by the genius of Sandra Cisneros
'The Lady of the House of Love' (1979) by Angela Carter for the delicacy of its atmosphere, its horror and its sadness. 'Red Nails' (1936) by Robert E. Howard – everyone’s favourite Conan story and which showed me what it means to write utterly without fear. More recently, Hemingway’s 'Big Two-Hearted River' (1925), which – like a bunch of his shorts – I began reading for study, but then couldn’t seem to stop re-reading. I think I love the stillness of this one.
The imagery and story haunted me!
Another one is Samantha Schweblin’s Mouthful of Birds.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a775/the-red-bow-george-saunders-0903/
My favorite short story is George Saunders’ The Red Bow. The plot is nutty but the character’s wants are understandable and the social dynamics read true… and I love Saunders’ voice!
I'll have to read this now! I love reading and writing short stories too, and have had a few published. Danielle Wood's collection of fairy tales retold as motherhood stories 'Mothers Grimm' is wonderful. Her stories Cottage and Sleep stick with me especially.
The first story that came to mind on reading your prompt was The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence. https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/rockwinr.html
It’s hard to put my finger on what compels me about this story, but if I had to try, it would be the sense of obsession that leads to untimely death. The pursuit of fortune through that sense of neurodivergence. I’m sure we’d say these days that the little boy was autistic. But back then…
My all time favorite short story collection is Cordwainer Smith’s The Rediscovery of Man. It’s all about the languages and world building. He was the author of the CIA’s manual on psychological warfare, and there’s a sense of relentlessness infusing these stories. Scanners Live in Vain and the Ballard of Lost C’Mell are titles that surface in memory. I can even remember the opening of Scanners … “Martel was angry. He did not even adjust his blood away from anger.”
It’s all about making words do things other than the convention to illustrate times alien to us. To reveal the humanity that perseveres among the Instrumentality of Mankind.
Borges, Raymond Carver, Carlos Fuentes, Lawrence, Kafka, they all had that sense of otherworldliness in their work that i aspired to when I was younger.
I’ve only written three short stories that have been published, and in very niche street pamphlets with a print run of a few hundreds, but I still think about unpacking one, A Thousand Ways of Density, which is kind of a prose poem, into a short story collection one day. I did one follow up related to it, Sundivers, but haven’t done more.
ADHD dreaming.
Jack finney - The Third Level and all of Jack Ritchie stories and all of Somerset Maugham stories
Richard Matheson - there’s no such thing as a vampire
I love The Illustrated Man as a sequence. But the story that has stuck with me for over 30 years is Whimper of Whipped Dogs by Harlan Ellison. Not that I really want to re-read it, to plum that depth of despair again.
Hey, ‘The Secret Sharer’ by Conrad pretty much fits the criterion you set out. It is, after all this is Conrad, written in beautiful language, it is very atmospheric, and it is one of the sexiest stories I’ve read. So win/win/win.
Great Question, Cole! Everything by Flannery O'Connor, but especially 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'. Katherine Mansfield's 'The Garden Party' and 'A Doll's House'. Fitzgerald's 'Winter Dreams'. William H. Gass's 'The Pederson Kid'. Harry Mathews' 'Country Cooking'. Almost anything by Hawthorne.
Favorite collections:
- Ugetsu Monogatari by Akinari Ueda
- Bestiario by Julio Cortázar
- The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
- Radicalized by Cory Doctorow
- The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett
Favorite single stories:
- Trilobites by Breece D’J Pancake
- Whatever Happened to the Guy Stuck in the Elevator? by Kim Young-ha
- Sawdust by Chris Offutt (that contains my favourite sequence ever in a short story. I'll post it in a comment to this comment, but please be aware it's not for the faint of heart)
- The shortest story ever written:
“Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí”,
by Augusto Monterroso
Mark Twain's stories were eye openers for me. "How I Edited An Agricultural Paper" is a humor master class.
Here to recommend Lucia Berlin's short stories in general. Only a couple of them really fall flat for me, all the rest soar. I even wrote the first draft of a feature script based off of her short story Strays, but I stupidly never got the rights to it so there is sits while, I'm under the impression, Cate Blanchette is looking for a production partner for the full collection it comes in _A Manual for Cleaning Women._ I can't argue with her taste or interest, the entire collection is high art.