Short Month, Short Reads
February is the shortest month of the year. So in what remains of it, take a break to enjoy perusing a few amazing short stories and novellas. Don’t be fooled, some of these volumes are quite large, but contained within are quick, enriching reads that are well worth the small amount of your time they require.
"Brown Dog," by Jim Harrison
Brown Dog is a bawdy, reckless, down-on-his-luck Michigan Indian. Work is something to do when he needs money, taking time away from the pleasures of fishing. Of course, this means that Brown Dog is never far from catastrophe, searching for an answer to the riddle of family... and perhaps, a chance at redemption.
"Tenth of December," by George Saunders
A collection of stories which includes "Home," a wryly whimsical account of a soldier's return from war; "Victory lap," a tale about an inventive abduction attempt; and the title story, in which a suicidal cancer patient saves the life of a young misfit.
"Breakfast at Tiffany's," by Truman Capote
In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Truman Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape. Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's; her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.
"Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories," by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Bonnie Jo Campbell is a keen observer of life and trouble in rural America, and her working-class protagonists can be at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny. The strong but flawed women of "Mothers, Tell Your Daughters" must negotiate a sexually charged atmosphere as they love, honor, and betray one another against the backdrop of all the men in their world. Such richly fraught mother-daughter relationships can be lifelines, anchors, or they can sink a woman like a stone.
"Collected Stories," by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver wrote with unflinching exactness about men and women enduring lives on the knife-edge of poverty and other deprivations. Beneath his pared-down surfaces run disturbing, violent undercurrents. Suggestive rather than explicit, and seeming all the more powerful for what is left unsaid, Carver’s stories were held up as exemplars of a new school in American fiction known as minimalism or “dirty realism,” a movement whose wide influence continues to this day.
"Difficult Women," by Roxane Gay
A collection of stories by the award-winning author of Bad Feminist explores the hardscrabble lives, passionate loves and quirky human connections experienced by diverse protagonists, including a woman who pretends she does not know that her husband and his identical twin switch places with her.
"After the Quake: Stories," by Haruki Murakami
The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami’s characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman.
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