IDEAL FICTION, Part III: Three authors compile their lists
Flatmancrooked presents the ideal fiction anthologies of three of its authors who chose not to go with first impulses, necessarily.
Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.
James Bartels, author of “Flag Day:”
Stories That Made Me Laugh or Think or Almost Vomit and Which Have Nothing in Common Other Than the Fact That I Sometimes Recall Them
In compiling this ideal collection, my first instinct was to develop an “idealiance” statistic. For each story, I planned to calculate the average number of skin shivers per thousand words and divide by the squared percentage of total time engaged in yawning. Facilitation of personal compositional inadequacy feelings and allusionary subtlety would also be incorporated into this unassailable quantification of overall story quality. Sadly, the long division tripped me up. That, and the fact that the stories that I would most like to see on this list are not the ones that I found to be the most fulfilling or inspiring. My list consists of the stories that pop randomly into my head without justification, the stories that for no particular reason have left squiggled imprints on my brain. It’s basically free association. These are the stories that I think of without trying.
1. “A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver
2. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
3. “My Flamboyant Grandson” by George Saunders
4. “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner
5. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe
6. “Little Drops of Water” by Kurt Vonnegut
7. “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor
8. “Guts” by Chuck Palahniuk
9. “The Rainbow Goblins” by Ui de Rico
10. “The Dead” by James Joyce
S. Craig Renfroe Jr., author of “Come, Come Away to Sumerville:”
Dark, Comic, and Fun
These ten aren’t my picks of the best stories ever or even the ones I necessarily love best. When I started that list, I went immediately to the masters of the short story—the Poes, O’Connors, and Munros. But then I thought about how I put together my mp3 playlists, and it has less to do with who I think is a genius (Miles Davis!) and more to do with who I want to hear repeatedly (The Killers?). So this list isn’t built on obligation but pleasure. In some cases, pleasure wasn’t the reason I first read these stories; some were taught to me (Hecht), some I teach (Orozco), some thrust on me by friends (Hannah), and some I came to with no requirement or expectation (Crane). No matter where I encountered them first, I’ve gone back to these stories not out of necessity but for the fun of it.
1. “The School” by Donald Barthelme
2. “Dundun” by Denis Johnson
3. “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville
4. “Promise” by Elizabeth Crane
5. “Orientation” Daniel Orozco
6. “Pete Resists the Man of His Old Room” by Barry Hannah
7. “Do the Windows Open?” by Julie Hecht
8. “Sex Devil” by Jack Pendarvis
9. “Ernest and the Machine God” by Harlan Ellison
10. “Descent of Man” by T. C. Boyle
Matthew Yost, author of “Neighbors:”
The Story and its Reader
There is no real plan for this anthology. More than anything, this list reflects my frustration with those fat, expensive books that often enough are padded out with obvious choices, or that exclude excellent material for inexplicable reasons. Case in point, the Junot Díaz story I’ve listed here is not widely anthologized. To find it, you’ll have to use Google, or (shudder) the microfilm catalogue at your local library. Same goes for Guy de Maupassant: everyone’s read ”The Neckace,” which is hardly his best work. Most of these pieces are stories I was lucky enough to have read in school, and to have a wife who is constantly recommending great things for me to read.
1. ”The First Day” by Edward P. Jones
2. “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Díaz (the version that appeared in the New Yorker, not the novel)
3. “The Kitchen Clock” by Wolfgang Borchert
4. “Gusev” by Anton Chekhov
5. “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel
6. “Builders” by Richard Yates
7. “A Way You’ll Never Be” by Ernest Hemingway
8. “Pomegranate Seed” by Edith Wharton
9. “First Snow” by Guy de Maupassant
10. “Neighbor Rosicky” by Willa Cather
By Deena Drewis
