Author: Jonathan Gibbs

‘Sweat’ by Zora Neale Hurston

‘Sweat’ is an iconic story by the American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who was born in 1891. It was first published in 1926 in a magazine named Fire!!, and revolves around a washerwoman, Delia – who cleans “white folks” clothes in her home – and her unemployed, insecure and abusive husband, Sykes. Their dynamic is fraught, and Sykes exploits Delia’s fear of snakes, which backfires to result in a karmic and poignant ending. The story, in the century since it was written, has been hailed “an ecofeminist masterclass in dialect and symbolism”. The dialogue is particularly powerful, and effectively allows the reader to ‘hear’ the voices of the main characters: “Sykes, what you throw dat whip on me like dat? You know it would skeer me – looks just like a snake, an’ you knows how skeered Ah is of snakes.” It’s worth reading it aloud (or listening to it spoken) to get the rhythm of it and appreciate the author’s intentions fully. Ultimately, ‘Sweat’ is a story about power and the suffocation of an abusive marriage, and how hope fails to thrive in such an environment, to the point where revenge is inevitable: “He crept an inch or two toward her – all that he was able, and she saw his horribly swollen neck and his one open eye shining with hope.”

First published in 1926 in Fire!!, available to read online on Biblioklept here

‘The Mark of Cain’ by Roxane Gay

“My husband is not a kind man and with him, I am not a good person.” This is how the short story, The Mark of Cain, by the American writer Roxane Gay, begins. It is one of twenty-one stories in her debut collection Difficult Women. This one in particular is an attention-grabbing tale of a woman who is married to a man who has an identical twin brother. “It is nearly impossible to tell Caleb and Jacob apart. They have the same physique, the same haircut, the same mannerisms. Neither of them snores.” The two brothers keep switching places with each other, so that she is effectively married to two different people. “I married Caleb but I prefer Jacob’s company. When Jacob and I make love, there is a sorrowful kindness to his touch. I never worry about being left asunder.” One man is tender and loving, the other, the complete opposite, and the main character never knows who she is going to get that day. It’s a beautiful, well-crafted story that pulses with female rage and desire, and offers no easy platitudes about how these Jekyll and Hyde situations will ever be resolved: “As the doctor glides the sonogram wand across the lower round of my belly, she turns a knob on the machine. ‘Do you hear that?’ she asks. The room is silent but for the identical flutters of two heartbeats.”

First published in Elle, Jaunary 2017, and available to read online here. Collected in Difficult Women, Grove Atlantic/Corsair, 2017

‘A Gleaming in the Darkness’ by Kim Edwards

This story, from a fourteen-story collection called The Secrets of a Fire King (which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award), is about the world of Marie Curie – the Polish-born French physicist, famous for her work on radioactivity – and is set in France at the start of the twentieth century. It is told from the deathbed perspective of a curious cleaner, Madame Bonvin, who worked in the two-time Nobel Laureate’s laboratory. At that time, Madame Bonvin was an uneducated French woman who has no understanding of the scientific advances being made by Curie, but possesses knowledge that the scientist doesn’t: “Long before she was famous in the world for her mind, Madame was famous in the market for her shopping […] The things any ordinary housewife knew, she did not understand…” It transpires that the cleaner idolises the scientist, and wanders around the lab at night, marvelling at what is taking place in the jars around her. From her deathbed, she reflects back on an image of “those jars, glowing a soft blue on the rough wooden tables, like a treasure in the back of my mind”, and she goes on to equate them to a human soul. Curie’s scientific advances, that the cleaner so admires, later leads to the development of X-rays, but also (unintentionally) to much more terrible things: the atom bomb: “There is terror now, yes, but truly the beginning was magnificent to behold.” Madame Bonvin continues: “Her work exploded with the violence of a thousand suns, but I must tell her it was not her fault, the way they twisted her creation, tampered with her dreams.” A Gleaming in the Darkness is about grief, persistence and sacrifice, the bittersweet nature of memory, and the terrible cost of what makes us human.

First published in The Secrets of a Fire King, Norton, 1997

‘The Last Night of the World’ by Ray Bradbury

The last short story I read as part of my challenge that year was The Last Night of the World by the science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury (I’d highly recommend his book on writing, Zen and the Art of Writing). This story begins when a husband asks his wife, “What would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?” She asks if he’s means there’s a war coming, an atomic bomb, or germ warfare. Stirring his coffee, the man says: “But just, let’s say, the closing of a book.” He predicts that it’s the last night of the world because of an ominous dream, one his colleagues have also reported. There’s a calm, accepting attitude throughout, and the woman goes on to ask her husband if they “deserve” the end of the world. He assures her that it has nothing to do with “deserving.” After putting the kids to bed, the husband and wife spend their last night together in the most ordinary manner – washing dishes, playing a game. The man asks his wife if she thinks they’ve been “bad”, She says no, but they haven’t been “enormously good” either. She thinks that’s the root of the problem: “We haven’t been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.” In bed, they kiss each other. He says: “We’ve been good for each other, anyway.” The story forces its readers to reconsider an age-old question about how we choose to live our lives, about the inherent value of the ordinary moments  – and sheds new light on what bravery and courage look like in the face of an inevitable ending.

First published in the February 1951 issue of Esquire and available to read here. Collected in Stories Volume 1, HarperVoyager, 1980

Introduction to a flash fiction Personal Anthology

There must be a name for those of us who constantly force-feed friends with short stories that they simply must read, but whatever we are called, here is my list. Just twelve, albeit with the sneaky side hustle that they come from on-line magazines which will introduce you to more. And then some more. We have a wealth of excellent online literary magazines and sites now (like this one), often run by writers who are just doing it for the pure love of the written word. So this list is also a thank you to the editors, readers, and amazing people who keep this strange form thriving. I’ve picked very short stories here, because it’s increasingly what I write and so I know exactly how hard it is to do well. But these are also stories that play on the page – with forms, genres and words. Enjoy. 

‘Ida’ by Elisabeth Ingram Wallace

The first time I read this story, I only realised half way through that I was holding my breath, so worried was I that it would lose its momentum. It didn’t. From the very start we find that the Ida of the title has “broad shoulders. One is three meters long, the other, stretches sixty two miles.” Once worshipped as a goddess, she’s now a tourist attraction, Bird Island. But in the middle of the story there’s this glorious line: “If she doesn’t move, no-one will know she is breaking down.” Oh yes, something’s going to happen… 

First published in Atticus Review, Nov 2017, where it was Flash Fiction Contest Runner-up

‘Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild’ by Kathy Fish

Collective nouns are famously beautiful, almost poetic, but Kathy Fish’s extraordinary list of collective nouns takes it to another level. She begins almost playfully – “A group of toddlers, a jubilance (see also: a bewailing)” – before pitching us straight into our worse nightmares. It’s current, shattering and urgent. And all in less than a page. 

First published in the Jellyfish Review

‘A Story Told to me by a Friend’ by Lydia Davis

I marvel at everything Lydia Davis writes, and this one is typical in that it is as much about what it doesn’t say as anything we read directly. Take the first line: “A friend of mine told me a sad story the other day about a neighbour of hers.” Her characters don’t even need to make the story their own for us to be intrigued, and of course, this distance becomes an important part of the story as we read on. Glorious. And heartbreaking. 

First published in Five Dials

‘Nature’ by Cheryl Pappas

An old woman freezes in a sewing factory, and the boss takes her to unthaw before sending her back to work. So far, so good, but of course there’s so much else going on, and every reading tells another story. I picked this one because the writing shows how everything matters: the rhythm of the sentences, the choice of verbs, and even the title can point us in many different and possible directions. Glorious.

First published in Smokelong, October 2017

‘Thirteen Writing Prompts’ by Dan Wiencek

I don’t think I’ve laughed at a piece of prose as much as this one. Several years on, and I keep going back to laugh so more. I’m not sure if it’s actually a story, but I do love how McSweeneys have taken it even further by publishing actual stories based on these prompts. It’s all genius – even if, as a creative writing tutor, I feel both seen and mocked. 

First published in McSweeneys, May 2006

‘Professor2’ by Szilvia Molnar

God, I love this story. It’s everything I long for in a very short story – heart, cleverness and that killer ending. But it’s mostly for the craft I appreciate it. The use of anaphora feels like a prayer, once once once, and then the almost but oh so not quite repetition in the last sentence. And now this review is nearly as long as the original piece. 

First published in twoseriousladies.org

‘Get Gone’ by Tania Hershman

Choosing these stories has made me realise how much I value writing that is crafted to such a high level that the reader doesn’t realise the tricks involved. That’s what happened with this story for me. I read it, appreciating the power and language before I realised that every sentence began with the same letter, G. Clever. And the g-g-g-g sounds give it a roughness too. Pure poetry. 

First published in Reflex Fiction, June 2020

‘SIGH’, by Michael Martone

Or as it’s subtitled, EXCERPT FROM THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ART SMITH, THE BIRD BOY OF FORT WAYNE, INDIANA. This is a beautiful act of flight, and childhood dreaming. Art Smith, born in 1926 was one of the pioneers of skywriting – it’s amazing what you learn from fiction, or do you? I’m still wondering if even the Wikipedia entry isn’t a clever part of the story. I wouldn’t put it past Michael Martone. 

First published in Split Lip Magazine