![]() There’s not exactly a lot of plot to spoil in The Lottery - but within a few short pages, Jackson manages to represent the mob mentality that can drive reasonable people to commit heinous acts.ģ. However, it’s safe to say that Dahl serves up a fiendish twist on a platter.Ī perennial feature in many a high school syllabus, Shirley Jackson’s best-known short story clinically details an unusual ritual that takes place in a small town. ![]() In just a few short paragraphs describing how she welcomes her husband home, Dahl makes us sympathize with Mary - before a rash act turns her life upside down and takes the reader with her on a dark journey.įor those who haven’t read it, we won’t spoil the rest. We are introduced to Mary Maloney: a loving wife and dedicated homemaker. While not exactly a philosophical or political tale like our first two examples, this twisty short story from Dahl does delve into some shady moral territory. ![]() From classics published in the 1900s to a short story that exploded in late 2017, here are ten of the greatest free short stories for you to read. These individual short stories are the best of the best - and the even better news is that they're available for free online for you to peruse. Whatever you think of the actual Taylor Swift, this story is just plain fun.Discover the perfect short story for you. In the end, I just wanted to read this thing again and again.” Which is exactly right. Why? Because all the stories I received were worthy and many were more technically ambitious when it came to language and form, by which I guess I mean experimental. The judge was Steve Almond, who wrote, “I tried quite hard to resist choosing “Taylor Swift” as the winner of this year’s Barthelme Award. I encountered this story-which is about Taylor Swift clones-when it won the Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize a couple of years ago. I’m always impressed by the way Samatar conjures an sustains mood this piece would poke a a wet black hole in any shining day. This story makes me laugh every time I read it, and also has taught me several facts about swans.Įvery sentence here is a story in itself-and then there’s the actual story, of a huntress (or two). I’m sorry, but Amelia Gray doesn’t get enough credit for being fucking hilarious. This piece, originally published in NOON, is one of my favorites of hers, and a very fine commentary on the plight of the “unlikeable” woman. When I first heard Deb Olin Unferth read, I was so desperate to write down what she’d said that I scribbled her phrases on my own pants in eyeliner. I like “The Outing” because it’s the skeleton of a story, poking fun at the notion of “what happens”-and yet still creates a powerful sense of what indeed happened. It’s hard to pick a favorite from Davis’s massive body of work (“ Break it Down” and “The Center of the Story” are two more that I love, though they’re a bit long for this list), but on the flip side, pretty much everything she writes is good. ![]() NB: this list should by no means be taken to reflect the “best of all time,” merely “my own personal favorites,” and is only a taste of what’s out there-so do us all a favor and point us to your own beloved micro-fictions in the comments. For that reason, and in honor of Lydia Davis’s birthday, here are eleven very short stories that you must-and can, thanks to the magic of the internet-read at your earliest opportunity. Her work is always where I start when I get into a flash fiction reading jag, but of course, it’s not usually where I finish, else what kind of jag would it be? While flash is sort of out of fashion at the moment, I’ve been hearing rumors of a resurgence- The New Yorker has a flash fiction series going on this summer, for instance-so perhaps it’s time to remind ourselves what very short stories can do. Davis didn’t invent flash fiction, but she is certainly its most famous-and perhaps its best-practitioner. This weekend, Lydia Davis-crowned master of the very short story, not to mention a preeminent translator of classic French literature-turns 70.
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