‘Handel’ by Lydia Davis

I’m fond of this story (another very short one, less than a page) partly because I’m extremely keen on Handel’s music and, like the annoying husband in the story, I listen to it a lot of the time. The undecorated narration and the matter-of-fact but surreal conclusion is productively disturbing. Like a number of Lydia’s stories, this one is very short, very formal, and very much larger than it looks.

First published in Little Star, reprinted in Can’t and Won’t, Hamish Hamilton, 2014