The Best Small Fictions 2017
Amy
Hempel, Guest Editor; Tara L. Masih, Series Editor. Braddock Avenue Books, $13 paperback (164p) ISBN: 9780998966717
A good
short-short isn’t that different from a good traditional short story. They both
need strong writing, developed characters, specificity, and surprise. But the
strange thing about brevity is that it adds more to a story, which can be seen
in the 55 stories collected in The Best
Small Fictions 2017. The third volume in the series features stories 1,000
words and under from collections and journals, both print and online. You’ll
find some expected voices here like Joy Williams and Stuart Dybek.
Likewise, you’ll see well-established presses featured. But you’ll mostly find
emerging writers and small presses.
While
the stories in the anthology are varied—fantastic and realistic,
language-driven and character-driven, allegorical and domestic—each shows what
can be accomplished through concision. In one paragraph, Joy Williams gives us
the normal world. In the next, a disruption, then a twist. In six paragraphs, a
character is changed. Larry Brown relies on object instead of exposition. Cereal
and beer paint a relationship without the need for explanation. In her
introduction, Guest Editor and small fiction hero Amy Hempel writes, “There is
no writing toward the story in a
short-short; the author must begin with
the story.” Allegra Hyde’s “Syndication,” begins with “My parents are in the
backyard, digging their graves.” Randall Brown opens “What a Beautiful Dream”
with “My aunt had a puppet made to look like her dead daughter, Peach.” And
immediately we are running alongside the narrators with no time, or need, to
get settled.
Most
often, these stories focus on one staggering moment or the impact of one
person, like the sea diving grandmother in Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bella’s “The
Sea Urchin” and the possibly homeless Jesus lookalike in Scott Garson’s
“Writer.” But other stories are expansive, like Matt Baker’s modern fable “The
President’s Doubles,” which takes us through 19 years in an impressive use of
economy and specificity.
In her
introduction, Hempel also quotes David Shields, stating the end of small
fictions “should force the reader to process anew what she has just read.” Many
stories in the anthology do just this by offering us only a beginning. Len
Kuntz describes two moments that will likely shape a young farmhand’s life.
Emily Corwin focuses on the motivation before the action, creating a new backstory
for a Little Red or Gretel. Ras Mashramani surrounds a girl with death and
danger as she plays a gory video game and then leaves the climax offstage. In
these three stories, action happens without happening. And we are left with
what Shields calls “retroactive redefinition.”
Purchase The Best Small Fictions 2017 HERE.
Also available at SPD and Amazon.
Reviewer bio: Christy Crutchfield is the author of the novel How to Catch a Coyote. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Mississippi Review, Salt Hill Journal, Juked, and others. Visit her at christycrutchfield.com
