‘Be a Woman, Be Yourself, Be Miserable’ by Sheila Heti

Strictly speaking, this is a novel extract rather than a short story, but this section – the letter B – was published online as a self-contained piece so I think it counts. Drawn from more than ten years of diary entries, Heti’s novel is a compilation of sentences from different times cut up and re-arranged in alphabetical order (via an excel spreadsheet, her publishers tell us). The writing veers from lofty reflections on morality and art to comments about buying orange juice or enjoying pierogis. There are snippets about relationships with several different men, which frustrates the impulse to find a single narrative thread, and yet there is definitely a shape here. The piece begins with short, snappy exhortations: “Be impeccable with your word. Be miserable about the world.” Towards the end it’s more about growing old and dying. It feels mysterious. Not everyone can pull this kind of thing off, but I think Heti does.

First published in the UK as part of Alphabetical Diaries, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Feb 2024. Available to read online at Electric Literature here

‘My Life is a Joke’ by Sheila Heti

“Could I have a glass of water, please? Where is my water? I am parched and I am dead.”

The short story as stand-up routine, as ‘Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?’ joke. A lecture delivered from beyond the grave. I must confess to mixed feelings about Heti’s recent work – Pure Colour was too sweet for me – but the early hits speak for themselves. Here, Heti’s philosophical comedy is literally grounded: the “salt and soil and sweat and worms and seedlings” and “those little Styrofoam balls”. When I think of this story I think of those little Styrofoam balls.

First published in The New Yorker, 2015 and available to read here

‘God’s Love’ by Sheila Heti

“Jenna, you better start loving God now, cause the years are passing, and when I screw you, I can see there are little hairs in your ass that weren’t there before, so I’m just telling you that you better find him soon.”

At her best, Heti is simultaneously deft playful and slight, and profound tragic and weighty. Sometimes her stories get a bit cute for me, but this one hits the note perfectly. Consisting of a man exhorting his girlfriend to stop sending emails to other men and to start loving God instead, it’s both funny and humiliatingly human. Is it cynical? Certainly it’s cruel, in the way only impeccably observed truthfulness can be. The speaker is so misguided that he’s almost endearing. At the centre of it there’s an interminable anxiety, and a stupid, stubborn, ridiculous refusal to believe that nothing’s ever going to calm it. And what is the speaker supposed to do with that? Heti doesn’t presume to know – only, not this.

Published in Mal Journal, 2019. Read online here

‘The Moon Monologue’ by Sheila Heti

A sliver of story. A morsel of moon-mania. Sheila Heti begins in the first person: “Nobody ever accused me of being bright, which I am glad for.” Immediately, the question hinges on the swing of the title— is this the moon giving a monologue, or is this one of those monologues to the lunar issued by a moonstruck poet ? Heti speaks to the moon the way she speaks to a cockroach, namely, with intense interest and curiosity. Her stories thread eeriness by connecting the real to impossible. A pleasure to get lost in Heti’s forests.

Published in The Middle Stories, McSweeney’s Books, 2012

‘My Life Is a Joke’ by Sheila Heti

When I started reading ‘My Life Is a Joke’ for the first time I wasn’t sure that the story could live up to the title. But then there’s this ramblingly funny perfect paragraph about an ex-boyfriend desperate to have his memory remain alive after he is gone. The paragraph ends with him, his wife, his son and his son’s wife, and his grandchildren all dead, and the narrator’s matter-of-fact observation that after this “the life of my first boyfriend will be through.” The narrator turns out to be already dead herself. There’s an incredible description of being buried. And the story ends with a “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke. I’ve been struggling to explain why the story works so well. I can’t. All that I can safely say is that from the title right to the last line of the story no joke feels unearned. And really, the audacity to us a chicken road joke that doesn’t end up undermining the entire story. I mean goddamn.

First published in The New Yorker May 4, 2015 and available to subscribers to read here

‘The Poet and the Novelist as Roommates’ by Sheila Heti

A man I met in a bar, who was in fact a novelist, asked me if I liked Lydia Davis’s stories. I said yes. This was not enough: he asked me if I preferred her early or her later collections. I said ‘early’. He made it clear that this was the correct answer. And so he was able to continue his conversation with me. I have more usually gone for ‘poets’: they are worse.

From The Middle Stories, McSweeney’s, 2012. Available to read online here