the other book in the two-book contract

The short story is a great form in which to write. It let's you focus on a moment, small or large, in a character's life that is either monumental, a turning point after which nothing is the same, or something small that is emblematic of who they are and how they have struggled/coped/failed in their lives. It is a portrait capturing a character at a particular time in their lives, an instant that should be unique to them but universal in the emotion it elicits from the reader. The form forces the writer to use every word, every sentence to further the story and develop the characters, there can be no wasted space, no exposition, no sidetrack.

As a writer I love the idea of short story collections, a perfectly curated ensemble of delectable treats, like something you'd find in a Jacques Torres box, compact, beautiful little packages with layered, complex, surprising flavors (Earl Grey ganache, who knew?). Stories are something to be savored, far closer to poems then novels in their economy and their independence. Like poems, the point of the short story, what the author hopes the reader takes away, can be just a flavor, one emotion, an image the encapsulates that emotion, an eire vibration that buzzes in the knuckles, in the arches of the feet. Maybe it has to do with what isn't said, with a world of possibility and potential, like a missed connection on a subway, some perfect exchange, some magic of synchronous auras that dims the surrounding commuters leaving nothing but two people. That moment and the memory of that moment is pregnant, poignant, urgent, wistful. And it doesn't need to be more than that (despite what craigslist, hollywood and publishers might have you believe). Novels tend to wring ever drop of possibility from a story. They are the magical meeting on the train, the subsequent five year relationship, the unwanted child, the affair, the revenge affair, the child's subsequent career in prostitution, the very long back story of her pimp who was a high school football hero until he wrecked his knee and had to move in with his grandma because his parents had turned his room into a nursery for their surprise baby who maybe would be the one to go to college since he had blown his shot, the prostitute's parents' search for her, their brief reconciliation in a bad motel room, their ultimate divorce after they find her driving semis, turned onto the new career path by one of her regulars, and her desire never to talk to them again, oh and the pimp dies by the hands of an unsatisfied client who had seen the pimp play his greatest game. Touch down. 

As a reader, I realize that I don't want to savor. Of course, I will stop to underline and sigh at a particularly beautiful line, but I'm more of a glutton. I don't want chocolates I want a Thanksgiving feast. I want to tuck in and not come up for air for weeks. Now you can get lost in a short story, of course, and that is the mark of a good one. But, when the story ends and you are brought abruptly back to your own couch with the shredded arms and the living room that needs to be vacuumed,  you become annoyingly aware of the writer, of the editor, of the entire publishing process. In that blank space between stories, where one set of characters seems to die and another born, the book becomes, not a portal into another's mind (you can imaging Catherine Keener dressed in white as she rolls her eyes, takes your ten dollars and hands you a book), but a commodity, a product, a jumping off point for the inevitable forthcoming novel.  Maybe what it is, what I struggle with, is this: in that space I stop being a reader and become a writer again, seeing too much of the scaffolding beneath the structure of a collection, seeing a magical forest demoted to set pieces, a potted palm lit from beneath by a can light, leaves strewn across a marley floor, a sad moon hanging from a wire. If I try to avoid this place of realism, rush past the void and on to the next story, I end up confusing them, waiting for previous characters to re-emerge.

I want to read these collections though. I want to understand how to make great stories, long or short. I want to see how writers I like solves the same problems I face in my own work. Plus, short stories are powerful, Julie Orringer's "Pilgrims" has been haunting me for months.

Or Jennifer Egan's Safari, which breaks all kinds of "rules" and is better for it. I'm currently reading Other People We Married by Emma Straub, which is flawed, but a really enjoyable read.

Her ability to create believable, unique characters is impressive. Her stories occasionally suffer from a lack of purpose, ending abruptly, but even then they are astute renderings of a moment. Her stories feel real, authentic and so, not always life changing, just life. I can't wait to read something longer from her (see I'm feeding the novel machine, but I can't help it). My issues with Straub's stories may be too influenced by my issue with all story collections in general. Here is my simple solution: the novella. All the continuity you want, without the bloated extra three hundred pages. I just finished Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley, which is so sweet, a light feel good book about a woman on a book-selling road trip at the turn of the century. I have a tidy stack of little books waiting to be devoured. Plus, I have to say the novella has a great weight, just feels good in the hand. Pick one up in the store and you will want to keep it with you. There is something reminiscent in the size and shape of a childhood diary, making it seem a more precious and personal form.

And yes, I'm writing a novel. Shut up.