Short

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

As part of my ongoing effort to be more efficient, I'm going to reuse some research Ed Aymar made me do in preparation for our panel at this past weekend's Gaithersburg Book Festival. But before you start giving Ed a hard time for making me do homework, I should hasten to add that it was research in my own brain and bookshelves: he asked us each to name our favorite short story.

Poor Ed! How was he to know that I never have a favorite. I have multiple favorites. Squads of them. Hell, regiments. Nothing makes me break out in a cold sweat more than those desert island challenges. Which ten books would you take? Only ten? Can't we make it a hundred? Wait, a hundred won't do at all . . .

But I digress. Anyway, I was having insomnia one night—and even listening to my audiobook wasn't helping, because it wasn't normal insomnia; it was the sort of insomnia you get when you've been taking Sudafed too long for the allergies that mutated into a sinus infection, and this is the stuff they make methamphetamine out of, remember? And why do they bother, really, when Sudafed alone will have you bouncing off the ceiling.

So I started tacking my brain, and then raiding my bookshelf, and came up with the following list of short story favorites. It's not all my favorites; it's mostly well-aged favorites, many of them from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies I started reading in high school when my Dad brought them home from the library used book sales—Stories My Mother Never Told Me, Stories That Scared Even Me, Stories Not for the Nervous, etc. Stories for Late at Night was particularly influential; several of my favorites come from that.

So in rough chronological order by publication date:

Saki: “Sredni Vashtar” and “The Open Window.” Stories in two very different moods from one of my favorite short story writers. These would have been published sometime between 1900 and 1916--Saki died at 45 in World War I, during the Battle of the Ancre—killed by a sniper, and his last words were reputed to have been “Put out that bloody cigarette!”

H.P. Lovecraft: “Pickman's Model.” First published in the October 1927 issue of Weird Tales. When Lovecraft was good, he was very, very good at his own particular corner of the genre, and for me, this is him at his best. Also love anything that has night gaunts in it.

C. L. Moore: “Vintage Season.” Published in Astounding Science Fiction in September 1946. Technically published by Lawrence O'Donnell, a pseudonym used by Moore and her husband, Henry Kuttner, but it's generally assumed to be mostly Moore's work. And technically I think it's a novella, but what the heck.

Idris Seabright (aka Margaret St. Clair): “The Man Who Stole Rope from the Gnoles.” First published in 1950 or 1951 in Fantasy and Science Fiction. To really appreciate this story, you should probably also have read Dunsany's “How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles," which would probably by my main choice for a Dunsany story if I had to pick only one.

John Collier: “Evening Primrose.” First published in his 1951 collection, Fancies and Goodnights. This story was the inspiration for a 1966 Sondheim musical that I keep meaning to figure out how to see.

Jerome Bixby: “It's a Good Life.” Published in 1953 in Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2. You may have seen the Twilight Zone episode by the same name. The story's even creepier.

Poul Anderson: “The Martian Crown Jewels.” First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1959. One of my favorite Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

Ray Bradbury: “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Published in Colliers in May, 1960, and also to be found in his short story collection The Martian Chronicles. If I expanded this list you might find a few more Bradbury stories on it.

You'll notice a pattern in this: most of these stories are in the realm of science fiction and fantasy rather than mystery. I think that's because back in the day when I read more short stories I also read more speculative fiction. I should probably list a Sherlock Holmes story here, but I can't figure out which one. Same with Lord Dunsany and William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki stories.

You'll also notice that none of them are particularly new, and that's probably because in compiling this list I was going for stuff that's been resonating in in my head a while. Among the mystery short stories that resonate that way:

Charlotte MacLeod, “Rest You Merry.” Originally published as a short story, which became the first chapter of her first Peter Shandy mystery, also called Rest You Merry. If the commercialization of Christmas makes you mutter “Bah, humbug!”--read this.

Dan Stashower, “A Deliberate Form of Frenzy.” First published in Malice Domestic 7, 1998, and nominated for the Agatha Award. I want to reread this, because while I don't remember what it's about, after all these years I still remember how blown away I was when I read it. So since my copy of Malice Domestic 7 has gone AWOL, I have a copy on order. Which means I can also reread Dean James's “The Village Vampire and the Oboe of Death,” also an Agatha nominee, and also part of one of the most frustrating "damn, which wonderful story do I vote for?" moments in all my Malice-going.

I do read a lot of short stories these days, but since I'm in a writing group with Art Taylor and Alan Orloff and am a beta reader for Barb Goffman—well, it takes a lot to blow me away. And a lot of the short stories I know best come from the Chesapeake Crimes series that Barb and I coedit with Marcia Talley. If I started naming favorites from that series, I'd run out of space and probably insult some people by not naming them. Though Art Taylor's “When Duty Calls,” is still a personal favorite, and the fact that Tim Bentler-Jungr didn't get a nomination for “Last Rites” still puzzles me, and—but enough!

Clearly I need to do more short story reading. Want to share any suggestions?

 

Comments

[Kristopher]

My favorite non-crime related short story is Everyday Use by Alice Walker.

And in the crime fiction arena, I always come back to the incredible story, The Octopus Nest by Sophie Hannah. How she pulls that off is simply genius.

[Lynda]

“Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes

[Kathy Lynn Emerson]

I agree completely about “Rest You Merry” in both its incarnations and I’ll add another holiday story, Barb Goffman’s “The Shadow Knows”

[Art Taylor]

Oh, such a nice post! I was reading it to get a list of stories I didn't know, hadn't read, and then suddenly there was my own name at the bottom. Appreciate the shout-out! And the additions to my TBR list.

[Barb Goffman]

Just saw this, Kathy. I'm so honored you mentioned my story. I love writing capers. <3

[Claudia]

It is indeed a hard question. One of my all-time favorite short stories is "Suspicion" by Agatha Christie. "Much ado about murder" by Kathy Lynn Emerson is a fun one, in which her fictional detective, Susanna, Lady Appleton, meets Shakespeare's Beatrice and Benedick.

[Claudia]

I meant "Accident," not "Suspicion."

[Donnaandrews]

Thanks, all of you--expanding my short story reading list!