‘Observation’ by Wendy Erskine

The voices! The exacting details! The unsettling vacancy of modern life!

Collected in Sweet Home, The Stinging Fly Press, 2018 and Picador, 2019

‘Let Me See You Smile’ by Lucia Berlin

An unflinching yet generous and warm view of a dark world.

First published in Where I Live Now, Black Sparrow Press, 1999. Collected in A Manual for Cleaning Women, Picador, 2015

‘Gospel Song’ by Dorothy Allison

Rage, hate, love and a character called Shannon Pearl. It has everything.

Collected in Trash, Firebrand Books, 1988

‘Black Flower’ by Edna O’Brien

People and place evoked in language that tilts and shivers.

First published in The Sunday Times, January 2011, and available to read online to subscribers here. Collected in Saints and Sinners, Faber and Faber, 2011

‘Housewife’ by Amy Hempel

A splinter of sex and desire and justifying both as ART.

First published in Micro Fiction, ed. Jerome H Stern, Norton, 1986. Collected in Tumble Home, Scribner, 1998; also in The Collected Stories, Scribner 2007, and widely available online

‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own’ by Flannery O’Connor

It’s Flannery O’Connor… Surely I need say no more?

First published in A Good Man is Hard to Find, Harcourt Brace, 1955. Collected in Complete Stories, FSG 1971, and now from Faber and Faber, 1990

‘You’re Ugly, Too’ by Lorrie Moore

If it’s good enough for Richard Ford…

First published in The New Yorker, June 1989, and available to subscribers to read here. Collected in Like Life, Knopf/Faber, 1990, and widely anthologised, including in The Book of the American Short Story, ed, Richard Ford, Granta, 1992

‘Especially Heinous’ by Carmen Maria Machado

Machado’s work is experimental without sacrificing integrity or the reader. A brilliant talent. I love her work, possibly too much.

First published in The American Reader, Vol. 1, No. 5/6 and available to read here. Collected in Her Body and Other Parties, Graywolf, 2017, and Serpent’s Tail, 2019

‘Short talk on The Mona Lisa’ by Anne Carson

This whole collection is clever and understated.

Collected in Short Talks, Brick Books, 1992

‘So, Some Tempestuous Morn’ by Barbara Pym

OK, so sometimes I need gentle humour and if I do, Pym is it.

First published in Civil to Strangers and Other Writings, Plume, 1989

Introduction

Welcome to my personal short story anthology, where I’ve curated a strange collection of fiction I’ve found captivating or disturbing over the years. These aren’t all my favourite stories in the world, just ones that have stayed with me for better or worse. Death, madness, Whatsapp, womanhood, lemons, psychics. Enjoy!

‘Los Angeles’ by Emma Cline

‘Los Angeles’ is a tremendous portrayal of the exploitation and insecurities of young women. The protagonist is working in a clothing store in L.A where everything’s overpriced and the girls are hired on how they look, not their intellect or experience. Management picks too-tight clothes for her to wear, and all the models in the pictures around the store have a sort of starved nymphomaniac aesthetic. We see how the structures that exploit women can be fought against or leaned into (the protagonist ends up flogging her dirty knickers to men in car parks for cash) and how sex is used as a tool and a weapon to exploit us all as consumers.

First published in Granta 149: Best of Young American Novelists 3, April 2017 and available to read there for subscribers. Collected in Daddy, Random House/Chatto & Windus 2020

‘The Wind’ by Lauren Groff

There’s so much pain, terror and love in this story, it’s exquisite. We find ourselves on the run with a woman fleeing her abusive husband. It’s clear that if the escape is not pulled off precisely, if she doesn’t manage to slip away with her children in tow, he will murder her. The narrator is the granddaughter of the story’s brave protagonist, and is retelling the tale as passed down to her from her mother. It’s a beautifully written and touching portrayal of a mother staying strong for the sake of her children — styling her hair though her face is battered, smiling though her husband knocked out her teeth. It’s a tragic, heartbreaking piece of work that highlights the reality faced by many women the world over. I can’t fangirl hard enough over Lauren Groff at the moment — my love heart eyes pop out on their stalks when I read her work.

First published in The New Yorker, January 25 2021, and available to read online for subscribers

‘Premium Harmony’ by Stephen King

King is a (the?) master of horror. Over the years I’ve loved his tales of zombie pets, demonic cars and telekinetic teenagers, but in ‘Premium Harmony’, he presents the real-life horrors of marriage and mortality. Within our mundane, pedestrian lives we are jolted into remembering that we should not forsake our loved ones, and we should appreciate what little we have before it’s snatched away from us. The focus on everyday, otherwise unimportant details (the purchase of cigarettes, the products on sale in Wal-Mart) and the subtle jibes and constant bickering between the married couple are what fascinate me in this piece. There is an agonising double blow in this story which left me completely shaken, idolising King for being so mercilessly brutal.

First published in The New Yorker, December 1, 2009, and available to read online for subscribers. Collected in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Scribner/ Hodder & Stoughton, 2015