A Question for All of You
In Which We Construct a Radical New Anthology
This week, I’d like us to try something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, in the spirit of using this huge gathering of brilliant people as a resource.
Here’s what I’d like you to do: name one (just one) short story that you feel is both 1) brilliant and 2) overlooked/under-discussed/woefully under-read.
The idea is to come up with a list of such relatively unknown, under-appreciated stories, stories that deserve to enter the canon and be read by everyone.
Just name one, and let’s not make it one of your own stories (ha ha) or one of mine.
Can’t wait to see the results and I’ll try, when we’re done, to produce a master list that I’ll then make available to you all.
If you can link to it, please do. Or, if you happen to know the name of the collection it appeared in.
Ready? Go.
I don't know if it's under-discussed or not, but I'm always sad when I encounter a well-read person who's not familiar with "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel.
I more than once had the pleasure of meeting and working with the marvellous Alistair Macleod, both here in Ireland and in Canada -- and I once asked him, at a reception in Vancouver, if he had ever read The Ledge by Lawrence Sargent Hall. “I did,” he said. “Is that not a perfect story?” I asked. And Alistair just shook his head in amazement over its accomplishment and we said very little more about it, the way people in agreement don’t need to say much more. Claire Keegan