Lively collection of 60 bite-sized fiction pieces.In their
exuberant introduction, the editors introduce readers to the genre
of sudden fiction. As distinct from the super-short burst of
narrative known as flash fiction as it is from the sort of
ruminative short story one might find in a prestigious magazine,
sudden fiction averages "a whopping 1,500 words," combining the
intense emotional charge of the former with the narrative arc of
the latter. The anthology gathers stories from magazines and
websites and includes work by well-known writers like Joyce Carol
Oates, Elizabeth Berg and David Foster Wallace, as well as
up-and-coming writers; it is primarily composed of American
writers, but it is peppered with contributors from other countries.
Best of all, there's not a dud in the bunch. Because they are so
compressed, none of the stories is particularly plot driven, but in
different ways, each is a fine example of the craft of story
writing. Most of them are in the first-person, showcasing a rich
narrator with an idiosyncratic voice. Among the standouts are Jenny
Hollowell's beautiful "A History of Everything, Including You,"
which unfolds the secret emotional life of an entire marriage in a
matter of paragraphs, and Tessa Brown's "In Reference to Your
Recent Communications," a masterly adaptation of the memo form to
describe a failed relationship. The more conventionally structured
stories effectively isolate a moment in time. Yann Martel's grimly
funny "We Ate the Children Last" is exemplary, as is Katherin
Nolte's painfully sharp "Before the Train and After." Successful
and satisfying. (Kirkus Reviews)
Responding to America s love affair with the short-short, editors
Robert Shapard and James Thomas searched thousands of books and
magazines to select these sixty stories each under 2,000 words,
each with its own element of surprise, whether traditional,
experimental, humorous, moving, or magical. In the process they
discovered both new talents and a wealth of celebrated writers,
such as Jorge Luis Arzola, Aimee Bender, Teolinda Gersao, Romulus
Linney, Yann Martel, Sam Shepard, and Tobias Wolff. Zdravka
Evitmova conjures blood drops that cure any disease. Ian Frazier
writes public relations for crows. Juan Jose Milas leads an
amnesiac husband to an affair in the candlelit darkness of a
cathedral with his wife. These tales told quickly offer pleasures
long past their telling."
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