Introduction

I was thinking of compiling this list in a Desert Island Discs way, but then sand, salt water, strong light, heat and humidity are not good for books or me. Plus the chances of me being marooned on a desert island are zero. However, the chances of me being marooned (more likely banished) to the garden shed are high. This is my Garden Shed Short Story list.

The short stories chosen feature the following aspects I like to read in a short story. Some may only have one aspect, others several.

Stories with an unusual narrative style, stories that make me think, stories I would want to read again and have a very definite ending. My feet are very firmly planted in the Maugham and Maupassant style of telling tales.

‘The Cold, Cold Box’ by Howard Fast

A decision story.

This was the first short story I read at school that made me realise that short stories could make me think and remain in my mind for days and weeks. And all in a short number of pages. This is the tale that started my lifelong love for short stories. ‘The Cold, Cold Box’ is set in an auditorium at some point in the future where members of a corporation meet every year to discuss company business. As the Chairman of the Board explains:

“At the beginning of our annual meeting — and this is an established procedure, I may say — we deal with a moral and legal point, the question of Mr. Steve Kovac. We undertake this before the reading of the agenda, for we have felt that the question of Mr. Kovac is not a matter of agenda or business, but of conscience. Of our conscience, I must add, and not without humility; for Mr. Kovac is the only secret of this meeting. All else that the Board discusses, votes upon and decides or rejects, will be made public, as you know. But of Mr. Steve Kovac the world knows nothing; and each year in the past, our decision has been that the world should continue to know nothing about Mr. Kovac. Each year in the past, Mr. Kovac has been the object of a cruel and criminal action by the members of this Board. Each year in the past, it has been our decision to repeat this crime.”

The reader finds themselves sitting in this auditorium, in the role of a new member of this corporation. And we all listen as the Chairman outlines the matter. Then a vote has to be taken. Which way would you vote?

First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Collected in The Howard Fast Reader, Crown Publishers, 1960 and The Edge of Tomorrow, Bantam Books, 1961

‘Coca Cola’ by Howard Fast

Humour is very personal thing. What one person finds funny, another may not. Some stories may just make you smile, others make you laugh out loud. This story for me falls into the second category.

A humorous story by Fast in his role as a World War Two war correspondent, who finds himself stranded at a scoring hot airbase in the middle of a desert. His one wish is fly out on the next available freight plane. Which just happens to be loaded with empty coca cola bottles. Fast is alarmed to find that once airborne the plane isn’t gaining height, the plane’s doors are missing, the aircrew are a crew of teenagers who are unwilling to jettison the empty bottles due to the paperwork it would cause. Plus,

“I looked at the open doors and then at the sand hills, and then I nodded and asked a foolish question about parachutes.
‘You don’t have one? Well, that’s strange, and it’s against regulations too, but it wouldn’t be much use at this altitude.’”

The situation goes rapidly downhill from there.

First published in he Last Supper and Other Stories, Blue Heron Press, 1955, and collected in The Howard Fast Reader, Crown Publishers, 1960

‘The Index’ by J. G. Ballard

A story told using a very unusual narrative style that is, in the form of an A to Z index.

Part of the story’s opening paragraph tells us:

“Editor’s note. From abundant internal evidence it seems clear that the text printed below is the index to the unpublished and perhaps suppressed autobiography of a man who may well have been one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century. Yet of his existence nothing is publicly known, although his like and work appear to have exerted a profound influence on the events of the past fifty years. Physician and philosopher, man of action and patron of the arts, sometime claimant to the English throne and founder of a new religion, Henry Rhodes Hamilton [HRH] was evidently the intimate of the greatest men and women of our age.”

For this story the reader is expected to do some work and make decisions. Does the reader work their way through the index A to Z or jump in at any point? Does it make any difference if either choice is chosen? Is there any information deliberately or unintentionally hidden in the index waiting to be discovered? And why did the index compiler add himself to the index?

As indexes go this is a very simple one. For example, no cross references to other entries. Years are not mentioned, only page numbers. A sample entry –

“Gandhi, Mahatma, visited in prison by HRH, 251; discusses Bhagavadgita with HRH, 253; has dhoti washed by HRH, 254; denounces HRH, 256.”

One pattern that does emerge is HRH being warmly welcomed by famous people initially, but he always manages to put his foot in it and the relationship sours, as in the above entry.

If indexes are your thing, you can spend ages teasing out information about HRH and his life. For example, the highest page number I could find was 769. So this isn’t a short biography and suggests the size of the book reflects the size of HRH’s ego.

First published in The Paris Review #118, Spring 1991, and collected in The Complete Short Stories Vol 2, Flamingo, 2001

‘Big Tom Fallon’ by Kit de Waal

Told as a monologue. Bridegroom Tom Fallon speaking from the heart tells his story. Fallon travels to England to live and work, but after a couple of years finds himself back in rural Ireland, blind in both eyes after an altercation with some yobs’ boots. Through quiet determination, Tom’s friends help him to stop brooding and give him the confidence to continue living. All of which leads up to meeting his future wife and his wedding day. A warm, uplifting story, beautifully written and a pleasure to read and re-read.

“Paulie Nolan is another one I have to thank. I don’t know why and I don’t know how he could bear it but when I came out of the asylum, that good man and neighbour came to sit with me every week while my mother went to work.
‘All right, Tommy, boy,’ he used to say. ‘I cannot get a minute’s peace in my own house so you don’t mind if I perch on this chair and read myself the Evening Echo do you?’
I could hear the paper rustling and he’d talk to himself about the football and the hurling, call down fire on the head of Liam Cosgrave and Paddy Donegan and every other politician up in Dublin that knew nothing of the real world as far as he was concerned.
Talking to himself he was, week after week, a right windbag and blabbermouth. No wonder they didn’t want him at home. Yes, you can all laugh now but its’s what I thought. I didn’t realise his kindness to me, as good as any father, better than some.”

First published in Supporting Cast, Penguin, 2020

‘The Sunset’ by François Coppée

A story with no plot or characters, but rather a description of an autumn evening in late nineteenth century Paris. Written by an author who enjoyed writing about the past in his stories. An idler having bought a book from a bookstall by the River Seine, rests awhile at a café with a drink and observes the sunset, whilst noticing that the evening throng of commuters engaged in their own conversations passing by, are not.

“A level light, warm and blazing, raked the scene, making long-drawn shadows on the ground, dazzling the passers till they blinked their eyes, and sparkling on the polished leather of the carriages and the sleek haunches of the horses. Nature, the greatest of artists and the most prodigal of effects, was exhibiting art for art’s sake that evening; she had been careful over that sunset; and our idler,whom chance had brought to look upon the scene, was suddenly carried away with delirious rapture at the calm and radiant splendour that transfigured houses, trees and sky.”

Fortunately, there is a wide variety of short stories to choose from. So it is possible to read a story to match whatever mood a reader might be in. Sometimes I want to read an undemanding atmospheric story and just wallow in comforting prose.

First published in Short Stories v64 #3, December 1906, Doubleday, Page & Co. Collected in Stories by Daudet & Coppée, ed. Arthur Ransome, T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1910

‘Crossover’ by Michael Gilbert

An action-packed, no-nonsense counter-espionage story featuring Mr. Calder, Mr. Behrens and Rasselas, a Persian deerhound.

The Britain’s Counter security service are keen to uncover the M Route, which is used by Russia to spirit defectors and others from Britain, across Europe to Russia. Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens are assigned to track a colleague, a supposedly Russian agent being transported along the route to discover the various staging points. In the excerpt below Mr. Calder is investigating a building.

“As he started to move forward, Rasselas gave out a very soft, rumbling growl. Mr. Calder paused. When nothing happened, he moved again. Rasselas caught his ankle in his teeth. At that moment the ground under Mr. Calder’s hands gave way. At one moment he had his palms on solid earth. The next, his fingers were slithering over the lip of a cavity which had opened in front of him.”

A flash, bang, wallop story. Full of daring-do, lively characters and plot.

First published in Argosy, October 1963. Collected in Game Without Rules, Harper, 1967

‘An Actor’s Day’ by Hjalmar Bergman

I enjoy reading stories concerning portraits of people, places and objects. I suspect it is a challenge for a writer to tell a character’s, place or object’s life story in a few pages. This entry, written by a Swedish master of the form – and who deserves to be better known – is such a story.

We follow a senior business man on a typical working day, as he attends meetings, a funeral, worker’s dispute, a late afternoon function and so on. At each event our businessman adopts a different face, jovial, solemn, confident and so on, for the relevant occasion. It’s only once at home in the quiet of a bedroom, that the business man’s face relaxes and he can be himself.

“The solemn ceremony was over, the president covered his head, cast a rapid glance at the clock, and hurried toward the gate. A man kept pace with him, took him by the arm, grasped his hand and pressed it. It was his dead enemy’s best friend. He said: ‘Thank you. It was beautiful. It was both true and beautiful, and still I don’t understand how you could.’
The president got into a waiting automobile. He answered only with a smile, which could be interpreted however one might choose. For he used his precious gift of speech with discrimination.
Ten minutes later the president made his entrée upon another stage, grim and bare, coarse and grey, smelling of the smoke of toil, soot, sweat. It was filled with fierce, refractory blue-overall men. The president buttoned up his overcoat at the door, for the frock coat would not have harmonised with the stage decorations.”

Published in The American-Scandinavian Review April 1932

‘Seven Floors’ by Dino Buzzati, trans. Judith Landry and Cynthia Jolly

One man’s hopeless fight against bureaucracy, sums up this story for me. The more I read this story, the more I realise this is painfully true to life. Less a story of fiction and more of a documentary.

Giuseppe Corte, suffering from an unidentified illness, books into a seven-storey nursing clinic for treatment. There he is placed on the seventh floor reserved for those patients with only the mildest of symptoms. This cheers him up especially as he learns that the lower floors are for those patients with more serious symptoms. After a while he finds he is moving down through the floors, towards his destiny on the first floor, not because of his illness, but for bureaucratic reasons.

“‘There’s only one inconvenience.’
‘What?’ asked Corte with a vague presentiment.
‘Inconvenient, as a form of expression,’ the doctor corrected himself. ‘I meant that the treatment unit is on the fourth floor, and I wouldn’t advise you to make the trek three times a day.’
‘So, then, nothing?’
‘Well, it would be better if you would be so kind as to go down to the fourth floor until the eczema has passed.’
‘Enough!’ screamed Giuseppe Corte. ‘I’ve already gone down enough! I would die. I’m not going to the fourth!’
‘As you wish,’ remarked the doctor, conciliatory so as not to irritate him.

First published in I sette messaggeri (The Seven Messengers), Arnoldo Mondadori, 1942. First translated in Catastrophe and Other Stories, Calder, 1965

‘Sanatorium’ by W. Somerset Maugham

This is what our cousins across the pond would call a bottle story: that is, all the action takes place in one location, in this case a Scottish sanatorium. All the patients are under pressure due to the illness, which effects various characters in different ways. Major Templeton, is relaxed about it. He knows he’s going to die, but he’s had a grand life: ladies, gambling, shooting and so on. Mr. Chester on the other hand is resentful and angry and constantly asks, why me? And is also harsh with his wife, because she is going to live.

All of life is to be found in this story. Romance, laughter, death, confessions, rivalry, anger, mental cruelty and so on. I discover something new in this story every time I read it. The narrator Ashenden (a thinly disguised Maugham), is sent to the sanatorium to recover from Tuberculosis. During the months he is there he observes his fellow patients and records their lives. Mr. Chester, who feels it is unfair he should be ill as he has lived a clean life; the gentle courtship between Miss Bishop and the rakish Major Templeton and the ongoing feud between McLeod and Campbell.

“‘First time they’ve let you get up, is it?’ said McLeod.
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s your room?’
Ashenden told him.
‘Small. I know every room in the place. I’ve been here for seventeen years. I’ve got the best room here and so I damned well ought to have. Campbell’s been trying to get me out of it, he wants it himself, but I’m not going to budge; I’ve got a right to it, I came here six months before he did.’”

Collected in Collected Short Stories vol.3. Vintage, 2002

‘Tabula Rasa’ by Etgar Keret

Sometimes when reading a story a reader can detect the direction a story is going in and how it will finish. But not with this tale. The author is known for writing stories with bizarre plots and flights of fancy. Children born with an aging disease and abandoned by their parents at birth are taken in by an institution. There to be looked after until they are ready to go out into the world. But what are they been made ready for? A. is one such child. And it’s through his thoughts that we find out what else is going on. By far the nastiest but also, thought provoking story on my list.

“Why, of all people in the world, did A. hate more than anyone else the man who had helped him the most? Why did A. wish that bad things would happen to the person who had taken him under his wing after his parents had abandoned him and who had devoted his life to helping him and others who suffered the same fate? The answer was easy: If there’s one thing in the world more annoying than being dependent on someone, it’s when that someone constantly reminds you that you are dependent on him. And Goodman was exactly that sort of person: insulting, controlling, patronising. Every word he said, every gesture he made, carried the clear message – your fate is in my hands, and without me, you all would have died a long time ago.”

Published in Fly Already, Granta, 2019

‘Grand Stand-in’ by Kevin Wilson

Another author who likes to write flight-of-fancy stories.

“I am an employee of Grand Stand-In, a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider. It’s pretty simple. With so many new families popping up, upwardly mobile couples with new children, there is a segment of this demographic, more than you would think, who no longer have any living parents. So many of these new parents feel their children are missing out on a crucial part of their life experience, a grandparent. And that’s where I come in.”

As the story progresses, the narrator starts to question the work she is doing. This is a story I find hard to resist, an author working with an unusual idea and running with it.

Published in Tunnelling to the Centre of the Earth, Ecco/Harper Collins, 2009

‘Mr. Whittaker’s Retirement’ by Paul Rutherford (pen name of William Hale White)

Some stories refuse to be forgotten, and remain lodged in my mind for whatever reason. They aren’t always stories by famous writers or well-known tales or have anything important to say. The story is just there in my mind. ‘Mr. Whittaker’s Retirement’ is just such a tale.

Mr. Whittaker, a senior partner in a drug company is forced to take early retirement due to ill health. For the first few weeks he finds retirement agreeable, but after that time hangs heavy on his hands. Then a bad investment on the stock market makes his financial situation difficult. In short, he finds he needs to go back to work. He’s fortunate to find a very junior position, but finds he’s now on the bottom rung and having to put up with being snubbed by clerks who previously were junior to him.

“For the first two or three weeks I enjoyed my freedom, but when they had passed I had had enough of it. I had nothing to do! Every day at the hours when business was at its height, I thought of the hurry, of the inquiries, of the people waiting in the anteroom, of the ringing of bells, of the rapid instructions to clerks, of the consultations after the letters were opened, of our anxious deliberations, of the journeys to Scotland at an hour’s notice, and of the interviews with customers. I pictured to myself that all this still went on, but went on without me, while I had no better occupation than to unpack a parcel, pick the knots out of the string, and put it in a string-box.”

Published in More Pages from a Journal: With Other Papers, Henry Frowde, 1910. Available to read online via the Gutenberg Project