Previously On: “The Dinosaurs on Other Planets” by Danielle McLaughlin
The New Yorker problem, part 2. If “The Hotel” weren’t written by the talented Anne Enright, would it have been published in The New Yorker? Rephrased: If I had written this story about an unnamed woman who gets off a plane in an unknown country and stares at a line of refugees—that’s the whole story—would anyone tell me it was good? read more
Previously On: “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster
Only one story in and I’m already rethinking my strategy for the year…
I decided on shorts from The New Yorker to easily find stories by authors I’d like to read more from (Munro, Wolff, Alexie, Smith…) and authors I’d like to try (Erdich, Meloy, Bolaño…). However—and I knew this going in—stories in The New Yorker can have more style than substance. There’s no guarantee that any of shorts on my list for the year will contain a proper story. Unfortunately, “The Dinosaurs on Other Planets” by Danielle McLaughlin is the first to fit this bill. read more
This is a more of a novella (12,000 words) than a short story, but E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” made me want to read more short fiction this year, so here we are. The timing of this story is the most interesting thing about it. If it hadn’t originally been published in 1909, it would be just another story about the hazards of social media and virtual reality. Instead, it feels eerily prophetic. read more