Author: Jonathan Gibbs

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

‘The Englishman’ by Douglas Stuart

Queer longing, lemons, and the rural Scottish countryside — what’s not to love? I read this story before the explosion of Stuart’s Booker-Award winning Shuggie Bain, and it stayed with me long after reading. The protagonist, and his to-and-fro with the Englishman who employs him as a ‘houseboy’, are perfectly captured. The dynamic between them is uncomfortably realistic. I adore the contrast in this story: between rich and poor, old and young, the rural Hebridean landscape and the bright lights of London. I love the ever-present thread of lemons that runs through the story, a reminder that no matter how far from home we travel we are always tethered to our past. Stuart’s reflections on family and relationships are always so deeply moving. I particularly enjoyed: “I am the youngest of five brothers, each son fading slightly, becoming paler, more flaxen. It was as though our mother were a rubber stamp that was running out of ink—and she was. She always seemed to be weary.” Ugh! Delicious. A pleasure to read from start to finish.

First published in The New Yorker, September 7 2020, and available to read online for subscribers

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This story hits so many of my favourite themes. Feminism! Hysteria! Hideous home decor! It’s impossible to extricate the story from the context and climate it was written in, the forced rest-cures of the Victorian era that the writer herself was victim of. I first read and studied the story at university, and as I get older (and during the long, dark months of living alone during a global pandemic) I relate more to the protagonist — driven to madness when left to her own devices in forced solitude. A deliciously gothic exploration of motherhood, mental health and oppressive patriarchal structures.

Published in The New England Magazine, January 1892. Widely collected and published, including as a £1 Penguin Little Black Classic. Available to read online here