short story collections I've enjoyed

A friend of mine is currently incarcerated and asked me to send a list of short story collection recommendations to pass along to his mother, who buys and sends him books. I made a somewhat exhaustive list of things I've read and enjoyed (most I've read this year), and decided to reproduce it here unedited, for the hell of it.

To explain my annotations: my friend has a strong preference for realism (but I was trying to recommend non-realist stuff anyway) and also has in the past asked me to recommend good literary fiction by gay writers.

Also: I already sent him three of my favoritest favorites, "Ugly Man" by Dennis Cooper, "In the Devil's Territory" by Kyle Minor and "If the Sky Falls" by Nicholas Montemarano, so they are absent from the list.



Short Story Collections:

Especially good, in my opinion:

~Fugue State by Brian Evenson (really masterfully creepy in a psychologically troubling, what is the nature of our reality kind of way)

~Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock (I think you might especially like this one. Really immediate, cutting, fucked up and funny)

~Good, Brother by Peter Markus (OK, this is not a short story collection, it’s more a novella, but I read it recently and thought it was gorgeous, so am recommending)

~Michael Martone by Michael Martone (interesting formal experiment – book composed entirely of contributors’ bios)

~Cathedral by Raymond Carver (you’ve probably already read this)

~Birds of American by Lorrie Moore (you’ve probably already read this as well)

~Mt Appetite by Bill Gaston (He’s a Canadian writer, just really solid, lovely stuff)

~Insects are Just Like You and Me Except Some of them have Wings by Kuzhali Manickavel (have you read K’s book yet? It’s hysterical. She’s brilliant, I think)

~Big World by Mary Miller (you’ve already read this, right?)

~How it was for Me: Stories by Andrew Sean Greer (I like his stuff a lot – he is gay)

~Short story collections by Peter Cameron (there were two, they were out of print for a long time and are now back, but selected stories from both are now available in a single volume called “The Half you Don’t Know.” I haven’t actually read it, the collection I read was one of the two out of print. He’s often painfully funny. Also, gay, though this only periodically crops up in his stories).

~Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel (if you haven’t read it yet, always a favorite of mine)

~Love’s Body, Dancing in Time by L Timmel Duchamp (she’s a dyke feminist sci-fi writer with a heavily literary bent. Might not be your thing, but some of the stories in this collection I love).

~The Torturer’s Wife (really intense collection by black gay Jamaican… deals with a lot of violent material, gay bashing, political violence, etc, in a sort of lyrical, dense language-y, occasionally magical realist Toni Morrisonish kind of way)

Also worth reading:

~Things that Pass for Love by Alison Amend (some of the stories in this are among my favorites I’ve ever read, others I thought were well-crafted but less memorable, and I didn’t feel like the collection as a whole totally cohered)

~Havana Noir (this is part of a noir series Akashic Books publishes, I really dug it)

~Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis (have you read her yet? She’s a big weirdo, but brilliant and always intriguing)

~Here’s Your Hat What’s your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken (this is a bit older now, but I liked it a lot)

~Bed by Tao Lin (mmmm… you might find him insufferable. I find him very funny, and also think his characters have a lot more going on emotionally than he’s given credit for).

~The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar Keret (have you read him yet? sort of an expert at magical realist-ish flash fiction)

~ It was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-Hearted Nature by Diane Williams (I think she’s fascinating, but I don’t know whether youd like her. Think some of Kim Chinquee’s weirdest and most impenetrable stuff, only funnier and a bit more random … like, she loves to randomly name characters out of nowhere, like “I was just talking to Raymond, and he said…” and uses constant non-sequiturs and sometimes even tense changes).

~ A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women (Kathy Fish, et al. Have you read it yet? It’s pretty wonderful)

~Scent of Cinnamon and other Stories by Charles Lambert (gay brit, nice collection, slightly uneven, I thought, but I dug it, and what I liked I really liked)

~Like You’d Understand, Anyway by Jim Shepard (he writes great stories abt historical explorer types dealing with inane human drama and inadequacy)

~Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (I had high expectations and only really loved abt half of this, but Im really glad she exists, and every story is at least interesting)

~Drift and Swerve by Sam Ligon (you’d really like this I think, much of it strong, immediate realism abt folks with tough lives)

~Elephants in our Bedroom by Michael Czyzniejewski (I didn’t flip for this like everybody else, but he’s definitely good).

~Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (he’s been getting a lot of attention, and deserves it)

~Civilwarland in Bad Decline, by George Saunders (haven’t become a worshipper of Saunders like some, but he is clearly amazing).

~You are not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett (another gay writer. This one was published by a big house, got a lot of award noms, etc. Certain stories I loved, particularly when he writes abt the intersection of mental illness and sexuality. Others I found too chilly and MFAish for my taste. You might really like him).

~You Must be this Happy to Enter by Elizabeth Crane. (She is hysterical. Kind of warped and loopy a la Miranda July, but warmer maybe, less alien).

My short fiction to-read shelf :

~The White Road by Tania Hershman
~Where the Long Grass Bends by Neela Vaswani

~The Withdrawal Method by Pasha Malla

~Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme

~A Relative Stranger by Charles Baxter

~Instruction Manual for Swallowing by Adam Marek

~Women up on Blocks by Mary Akers

~Dangerous Laughter by Stephen Millhauser

~The Burning House by Ann Beattie

~Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie

~Oblivion by David Foster Wallace

~The Rainbow Stories by William T Vollman

~AM/PM by Amelia Gray

~The Apocalypse Reader, edited by Justin Taylor

~Taking Care by Joy Williams