‘Fox 8’ by George Saunders

‘Fox 8’ was my introduction to George Saunders, when the story was printed in The Guardian in 2017. While Fox 8 himself – whose fox family all go by numbers – is sassy, funny, and optimistic, his optimism is shaken by the ecological destruction done by Yumans as they build their Par King and Mawl, so he decides to write a letter to the Yumans, telling them how it is for the foxes.

Some may be put off by Fox 8’s unique spellings – try not to be. The spellings add a huge amount to the story, not least atmosphere.

“Deer Reeder:
First may I say, sorry for any werds I spel rong. Because I am a fox! So don’t rite or spel perfect. But here is how I lerned to rite and spel as gud as I do!…”

First published in The Guardian in 2017, and in print as a standalone, Fox 8, Bloomsbury, 2018. You can listen to it here, read by George Saunders himself, but you lose the amazing spellings

‘The Open Window’ by Saki (H. H. Munro)

I first read this story as a teenager, when I was probably about the same age as the mischievous and self-possessed young woman in the story. It is rightly famous. I was nowhere near as mischievous and self-possessed as she is, however. It took me quite a while to work out what was going on, and these days I feel terribly sorry for the vulnerable visitor. But it is still very funny.

First published in The Westminster Gazette, 1911, and later included in his collection Beasts and Super-Beasts, 1914. You can read it here

The Plankton Collector by Cath Barton

A wonderful short magical realist novella, beautifully written, which won the Novella Prize at the Welsh Writing Awards in 2017.

At the heart of this story is a deeply unhappy family. A mysterious character, who seems to be able to bend space and time, appears differently to each family member, being just the person they need to meet at that moment. Wonderfully humane, this story is about healing and redemption.

Parthian Books, 2017

‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You’ by M.R. James

An old ghost/horror story, by one of the masters of the uncanny, with layers of atmosphere, wit and humour. Again, I first read this as a teenager. Despite its age it wears well, with a chatty narrator who is clearly enjoying himself, and who is not completely neutral. This technique is relatively rare these days, but on re-reading the story I still enjoy the narrative bias, and all the many asides. The story begins: “‘I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full term is over, Professor,’ said a person not in the story…”

The premise is truly nightmarish. Professor Parkins invites a malign ghostly presence into his life simply by blowing a whistle which he has dug up from an ancient ruin. He blows the whistle in all innocence and is slowly terrified almost out of his wits, as was I the first time I read it. The mysterious inscription on the whistle isn’t completely explained, but perhaps part of it means O thief, you will blow [it], you will weep…

There are plenty more stories to read at the link – four books’ worth of stories, according to the introduction by M.R. James himself. There is also a short chapter by the author at the end: “Stories I have tried to write” – how wonderfully honest of him! And generous too, as he offers these ideas to anyone who can make something of them.

First published in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Edward Arnold, 1904. You can find this story in the Canadian Gutenberg collection of M.R. James’s collected ghost stories here

‘The Most Amazing’ by Mark Ralph-Bowman

This tiny story is less than 300 words, a flash fiction. It’s a love story, and is sweet and kind and hopeful. It has stayed with me since I first read it back in 2015. But is the world ending or not?

As I have experimented with flash fiction I really wanted to include a flash here – my novella ‘Aerth’ contains many flash fictions and even some prose poems.

There are so many good examples of flash fiction, but this has stayed with me, and it still makes me smile.

First published online as 3rd prize winner in the Bath Inaugural Flash Fiction Award, 2015, and in print in To Carry Her Home, Ad Hoc Fiction, 2017. You can read it here

‘The Bath’/‘A Small Good Thing’, by Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver was seen for a long time as the minimalist par excellence, but it became apparent after some years just how much his editor Gordon Lish worked on Carver’s stories, including huge cuts, renaming characters, and even changing stories.

I have a copy of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and also a copy of Beginnings; these books contain the same stories, in the same order, sometimes with different titles – but the stories in the former were edited by Gordon Lish, those in the latter weren’t, and are as Carver originally submitted them. I picked up the two books again for this article, curious to see if I had the same reaction as the first time around, and it’s a qualified ‘yes’.

‘The Bath’ began its life as ‘A Small, Good Thing’, and was edited down to probably a quarter of the original length. Although a “cleaner” text, it feels like almost a completely different story. So I wonder about editorial choices and the reasons for them.

Is this two stories or one? Which version is better? I can’t decide. But if Carver hadn’t written the original, Lish would not have had anything to cut and rewrite.

The through-line is that a mother orders a birthday cake for her son, Scotty (the only person in the story who retains a name in the edited story), but the boy is hit by a car and dies.

The heavily edited version is sparse and spare, with no room for human connection – which is there in abundance in ‘A Small, Good Thing’.

Raymond Carver himself intended to publish the stories in their full unedited version, but it was his widow Tess Gallagher who eventually did that. I’m glad we have both versions. Interestingly, I have seen in various places online a common belief that ‘The Bath’ was the original story, later expanded to ‘A Small, Good Thing’. I can see why people may think that, but it’s not the case.

These stories – both books of stories – make me think about my own choices in writing and editing my own work. And how might I respond if my work were to be edited so brutally as here? I hope that never happens…

‘The Bath’ was first published in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Knopf, 1981; ‘A Small, Good Thing’ was first published in Beginners, Jonathan Cape, 2009

‘The Canterville Ghost’ by Oscar Wilde

I read this story when I was about 12, and loved it, reading it several more times in my teens. The premise is simple – a wealthy American family moves into Canterville Chase, a historic house, despite it being haunted, and despite everyone warning him against it, including Lord Canterville. However the sensible Americans refuse to be scared by this ghost, and ignore his increasingly desperate hauntings, even going so far as to recommend to him a special product to oil his clanking chains, and regularly cleaning up the ancient bloodstains (the ghost is reduced to using the children’s paintbox in his attempts to replace the stains).

The poor ghost dwells on his past glorious hauntings and becomes increasingly despondent at his lack of purpose, but is rescued by the kindly daughter.

Perhaps Wilde wrote it as a satirical antidote to the obsession with the supernatural, the ghostly, and spiritualism at the end of the 19^th century. Certainly he was having fun with it, subverting all the usual ghost story telling conventions.

It’s a fun story, not too demanding, and ideal for reading to young children or for reading when you’re not well. And it ends with True Love. A great introduction to the charm and wit of Oscar Wilde.

First published in two parts in The Court and Society Review, 1887. You can find it here

‘William Turns Over a New Leaf’ by Richmal Crompton

Richmal Crompton was, and remains, rightly famous for her “Just William” stories about an eleven-year-old boy navigating with some perplexity the challenges of life. He remained eleven for nearly fifty years. I chose this story almost at random – I would be happy with almost any of the hundreds of William stories Crompton wrote. They are mostly still in print.

William – a goodhearted boy – muddles his way through each story, causing increasing chaos as he goes. There is not a hint of condescension in her portrayal of William, or of any of the characters. They are drawn with sympathy in their foibles and misunderstandings. Each story gives us insights into the world of the time, from the early 1920s right up to the late 1960s. In the 1920s William comes from a well-off middle-class family (with a maid, cook, and gardener), somewhere in the Home Counties. Children had lots of freedom, and could be out all day without any adult supervision, just coming home for meals.

In this story, published 100 years ago, William attempts to become the good boy that his family longs for, with comic results.

Crompton wrote about 40 William books, and described them as potboilers, writing an additional forty or so adult novels which she took more seriously. One day I shall read some of them.

There have been TV and film adaptations of some of the William stories, but I don’t think any of them really capture the humour and energy of the originals, although the BBC radio adaptation with Martin Jarvis narrating was brilliant. I have often laughed out loud when reading them, and my delight was unbounded some years ago when I spotted about 10 volumes in a charity shop and bought them all – bedtime reading with my children for the next few months (and they carried on reading them themselves well into their teens). One of the great things about these stories is that they can be appreciated by readers of any age. Sheer genius.

First published in Still – William!, MacMillan, 1925

‘Liberation Day’ by George Saunders

‘Liberation Day’ is very different from ‘Fox 8’, and is one of the strangest and most disturbing stories I have ever read, and utterly compelling. It’s a typically inventive Saunders story, this time a blend of science fiction, horror, social commentary and historical perspectives. I found it almost impossible at the beginning of the story to understand what was going on. Gradually the horror becomes revealed, and after a few pages I was invested.

The main character, Jeremy, is unaware of the true circumstances of his life – at least for the first three-quarters of the story. This kind of deliberately-induced amnesia seems to be a theme with Saunders, and is itself akin to social commentary. Jeremy is a kind of slave. He belatedly realises this, but opts not to have his memory reset to a blank slate, and to live out his life in growing consciousness of inequity and exploitation. Horrifying, weird, darkly comic, tragic, and worth re-reading more than once.

Like all of Saunders’ stories, including ‘Fox 8’, this story contains many layers of meaning.

First published in Liberation Day, Random House, 2022

‘Then Later, His Ghost’ by Sarah Hall

A chilling story, not for the usual ghostly reasons, despite the title.

This story is set in a bleak dystopian future, with a constant gale-force icy wind. A young man struggles to survive – nothing can grow, all the animals and birds have gone, and, heavily protected by layers of clothing, thick gloves and goggles, he goes around looking for food in abandoned buildings, which sometimes collapse around him. There is a woman living in the house with him, Helene. They are not partners, in fact she is his former teacher, but he suspects she doesn’t recognise him. She is heavily pregnant, and barely moves, perhaps from despair. But he is determined to find her a Christmas gift, some Shakespeare, seemingly impossible in a world where almost everything has been destroyed.

This is speculative climate fiction, depicting a brutally cold and inhuman world, uncanny in its indifference to any fragile bodies simply trying to survive. I can’t imagine how much worse everything will become when the baby arrives.

Much of the story is simply description – but how powerful that description is, and how varied. How many ways are there to describe wind and cold, or abandoned interiors? More than I would have imagined.

“The wind was coming from the east when he woke. The windows on that side of the house boxed and clattered in their frames, even behind the stormboards, and the corrugated-iron sheet over the coop in the garden was hawing and creaking, as though it might rip off its rivets and fly off. The bellowing had come into his sleep, like a man’s voice…”

As a climate writer myself, this haunting story got under my skin and gets into my anthology.

First published in The New Statesman, 2014. You can find it here, along with a link to an audio recording. Collected in The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story, ed. Philip Hensher, Penguin, 2019

‘Winter Luxury Pie’ by Peter Hobbs

This is one of those delightful stories that surprises at every turn. The narrator has a dry wit and a unique and idiosyncratic voice, as she contemplates the history of her family.

Peter Hobbs is a British writer who somehow captures the voice of a world-weary female American who lives somewhere remote and rural, perhaps the Appalachians or the Deep South. The family are farmers, and the story is broken up into short sections named after pumpkins. I confess I am suspicious of some of the pumpkins’ names; some are genuine (I have grown pumpkins and squashes myself) but some may not be… In any case, this story is huge fun.

“Home-schooling hell aside, the three of us had a golden childhood. From which I don’t retain too much. The lingering slightly fibrous taste of tomatoes straight from the vine. A happiness which arises only when I’m surrounded by farmland or countryside. Great memories of pre-Christmas pig-slaughtering ceremonies. The ability to operate a tractor. Well-developed upper-body strength from every menial task you care to name – and subsequently a right hook a fair degree more dangerous than you’d expect from looking…”

Published in I Could Ride All Day In My Cool Blue Train, Faber & Faber, 2006. You can read it here

‘Hitting Budapest’ by NoViolet Bulawayo

Six young Zimbabwean children, virtually starving, spend their days on the streets stealing food to eat. Their own shanty town is called Paradise; their target is an upmarket area called Budapest, where they have an encounter with a British black woman: “I’m from London. This is my first time visiting my dad’s country.”

The most unsettling thing for these children is the fact that she throws away part of her doughnut (they can’t imagine ever throwing away food) – not their permanent hunger, not the pregnancy of 10-year-old Chipo by her grandfather, nor even, really, coming across a body hanging from a tree.

I have family members in Uganda, and I wonder, when visiting, how people there view white westerners – “Europeans”, as they call us. The children in this story are matter-of-fact about the actuality of their lives, juxtaposed with dreams of travelling, becoming rich, living in big houses. The overseas visitor from London is almost like an alien, incomprehensible. The children have “heard the stories” about exploitation in other countries. One child says, sagely, that he wouldn’t want to fly anywhere, in case he couldn’t get back. He would want to go to South Africa, so he could walk home if necessary.

Poignant, unsentimental, unsettling, this brilliant story now forms part of the beginning of Bulawayo’s novel We Need New Names (Chatto and Windus, 2013), a book I must read.

First published in The Boston Review, November 2010, winner of the Caine Prize in 2011. You can find it here.