Reading: the new story collection by Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance. Here’s a Salon interview conducted by Kate Moses a while back. What I like: the brevity of the stories, the way Davis throws an idea onto the page in the first sentence and illuminates it by the end of the page. Many of these stories are indeed one-to-two-pagers, stylistically taut mini-narratives that are both intellectually and emotionally charged. The book contains three longer stories, the charming “We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth Graders,” “Mrs. D. and Her Maids,” and “Helen &...
The blog for aspiring writers & voracious readers. Writing resources, book reviews, & notes on the literary life.
