31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 8: “A Piece of Flesh” by Varlam Shalamov; Donald Rayfield, trans.
Varlam Shalamov's intense short fiction provides an intense and unvarnished glimpse of life inside Stalin's Gulag.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 7: “The Puppet Motel” by Gemma Files
A modern-day ghost story, Gemma Files's literary chiller is a masterpiece of atmospheric dread.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 6: “His Brother’s Keeper” by Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett's story about a promising boxer and his venal brother represents a departure for the author.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 5: “Ozk” by Sarah Meehan Sirk
Sarah Meehan Sirk's poignant and ironic story is a study of disappointment told in the context of a daughter's relationship with her distant mother.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 4: “Investment Results May Vary” by Zsuzsi Gartner
Zsuzsi Gartner's precisely calibrated, vicious little parable is about the things we want but can't have.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 3: “Musique Concrète” by Amparo Dávila; Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson, trans.
Amparo Dávila's uncanny story of psychological torment has echoes of Poe and Kafka.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 2: “The Interior Castle” by Jean Stafford
Jean Stafford's story is a close and incisive work of psychological fiction.
31 Days of Stories 2020, Day 1: “The Finkelstein 5” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's story is a satire about the cascading violence that results from institutional racism.
31 Days of Stories 2020: Why stories?
Short stories offer a different kind of pleasure from other forms of literature, a pleasure not curtailed by a story's relatively small size.
The eyes have it: “I Am the Doorway” by Stephen King
Stephen King's short story "I Am the Doorway" rides the line between science fiction and horror.