| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- "The Fourth Alarm" by John Cheever -- "A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus -- "Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams -- "Leaving the Colonel" by Molly Giles -- "A Cautionary Tale" by Deborah Eisenberg -- "The Wounded Soldier" by George Garrett -- "Consolation" by Richard Bausch -- "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" by Eudora Welty -- "How Can I Tell You?" by John O'Hara -- "Triumph Over the Grave" by Denis Johnson -- "No One's a Mystery" by Elizabeth Tallent -- "Who Is It Can Tell Me Who I Am?" by Gina Berriault -- "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver -- "The Magic Barrel" by Bernard Malamud -- "Dare's Gift" by Ellen Glasgow -- "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien -- "In Another Country" by Ernest Hemingway -- "Like Life" by Lorrie Moore -- "Ghost and Flesh, Water and Dirt" by William Goyen -- "The Tree of Knowledge" by Henry James -- "Sur" by Ursula Le Guin -- "FRAGO" by Phil Klay -- "My Father Sits in the Dark" by Jerome Weidman -- "Th e Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter -- "The Bridegroom's Body" by Kay Boyle -- "The Doorbell" by Vladimir Nabokov -- "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor -- "Jubilee" by Kirstin Valdez Quade -- "Winter Dreams" by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" by Delmore Schwartz -- "Goodbye and Good Luck" by Grace Paley -- "Flight" by John Updike -- "A Silver Dish" by Saul Bellow -- "Flying Home" by Ralph Ellison -- "Blessed Assurance" by Langston Hughes -- "Big Black Good Man" by Richard Wright -- "Travelin Man" by Peter Matthiessen -- "Pet Milk" by Stuart Dybek -- "The Pedersen Kid" by William H. Gass -- "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville -- "Old Boys, Old Girls" by Edward P. Jones -- "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Th urber -- "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin -- "The Laughing Man" by J. D. Salinger -- "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid -- "Fatherland" by Viet Thanh Nguyen -- "The Pura Principle" by Junot Diaz -- "Honeydew" by Edith Pearlman |
| Summary |
"On the assumption that John Updike was correct when he asserted, in a 1978 letter to Joyce Carol Oates, that "Nobody can read like a writer," Why I Like This Story presents brief essays by forty-eight leading American writers on their favorite American short stories, explaining why they like them. The essays, which are personal, not scholarly, not only tell us much about the story selected, they also tell us a good deal about the author of the essay, about what elements of fiction he or she values. Among the writers whose stories are discussed are such American masters as James, Melville, Hemingway, O'Connor, Fitzgerald, Porter, Carver, Wright, Updike, Bellow, Salinger, Kincaid, Malamud, and Welty; but the book also includes pieces on stories by well-known practitioners such as Andre Dubus, Ellen Glasgow, Kay Boyle, Delmore Schwartz, George Garrett, Elizabeth Tallent, William Goyen, Jerome Weidman, Peter Matthiessen, Grace Paley, and William H. Gass, and relative newcomers such as Lorrie Moore, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Phil Klay, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Edward P. Jones. Why I Like This Story will send readers to the library or bookstore to read or re-read the stories selected. Among the contributors to the book are Julia Alvarez, Andrea Barrett, Richard Bausch, Ann Beattie, Andre Dubus, George Garrett, William H. Gass, Julia Glass, Doris Grumbach, Jane Hamilton, Jill McCorkle, Alice McDermott, Clarence Major, Howard Norman, Annie Proulx, Joan Silber, Elizabeth Spencer, and Mako Yoshikawa."-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed June 12, 2019) |
| Subject |
Authors, American -- Books and reading
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Short stories, American -- History and criticism
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Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- Books & Reading.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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Authors, American -- Books and reading
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Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
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Short stories, American
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Bryer, Jackson R., editor
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| ISBN |
9781787445352 |
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1787445356 |
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