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Pretty Story Bag: 7 Sweet Tales to Carry Along

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Alice Munro once said: “I want the story to exist somewhere so that in a way it’s still happening … I don’t want it to be shut up in the book and put away – oh well, that’s what happened.” Atwood articulates the same position in this fun, thought-provoking story that begins with a man meeting a woman, then offers variants of what happens next. Any ending that isn’t death, she concludes, is false, and the interesting part of stories isn’t what happens, but how and why. “Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin (1965) Cheever is known as a chronicler of the suburbs, but in this story the leafy neighbourhood of Shady Hill, a recurring location in his fiction, blends the domestic with something much stranger, almost magical. The story is comic (its title mirrors William Wycherley’s 1675 comedy of manners The Country-Wife), but darker currents work beneath its surface and it builds to a stunning finale that is one of the most rapturous passages Cheever ever wrote. “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad (1897) A kid attemps to ignore distractions during church after being promised an ice cream sandwich for good behavior.

An asteroid is heading toward Earth; people in a small town figure out how to spend their last day. It is uncertain whether it was Turgenev or Dostoevsky who said, “We all came out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’”, but his influence on those writers – as well as on Tolstoy, Kafka, Nabokov, Borges and many more – is profound. The main character of this bleakly hilarious story, the downtrodden government clerk Akaky Akakievich, is arguably the first antihero in modern literature, and his doomed pursuit of a new overcoat one of the most memorably absurd quests in fiction. “Six Feet of the Country” by Nadine Gordimer (1953) A father and daughter take a hunting trip every year together, but every year they grow farther apart. A pregnant teen faces the reality that her life is going to be much different from her high school peers.A renowned Russian composer is tasked with creating his most difficult piece yet; a symphony for his country’s dreaded dictator. A hermit's caretaker passes away, forcing her to make trips outside to interview a new candidate for the job. A character's home is split in two by a sudden Earthquake. They must work to find a way to the other side, where something valuable is.

A character hosts an auction for the items of a beloved neighbor who has recently passed, to most of the neighborhood's dismay. Diane had to go through the one thing she had foreseen and was afraid of – and there was nothing I could do to help. An elderly man moves to a home and realizes it was cursed by the family that lived there previously. A department store sales person runs into an old high school classmate who threatens to reveal information that could lose them their job.

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Poe is a master of the “unreliable narrator” – a voice that speaks with devastating spontaneity and is utterly convincing – that has come to be a staple of much suspense and horror fiction in the 20th and 21st centuries. Unhampered by the literary pretensions of certain of Poe’s other, longer stories, totally committed to its unrepentant pathology, and its visceral celebration of this pathology, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is the very essence of Poe, as Poe is himself the very essence of the American gothic tradition. Joyce Carol Oates “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce (1890) James Joyce explores the turbulence and humiliation of adolescence. Photograph: Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images “A Bright Green Field” by Anna Kavan (1958) In the midst of a plague-ridden Venice, an inspector begins a series of unethical experiments to find a cure. Telling personal stories can be extremely powerful. We are building a network of people willing to share their experience to help us strengthen the case for law change. After their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, a group of women spend the rest of their road trip waiting for help.

The summer that Belly turns sixteen, major changes impact everyone staying at the Fisher’s beach house. After the Conklins arrive, the two families begin to settle in for what at first seems like a typical vacation—but it soon becomes clear that this summer won’t be the same as those before. Belly has blossomed into a beautiful young woman, and both boys notice the change in her appearance. However, Conrad’s moodiness makes Belly feel more distant from him than ever before. She learns that Conrad has quit the football team, broken up with his girlfriend, and started smoking. Initially, the cause of Conrad’s sullen mood is unclear. As the story progresses, the reader learns more about the difficulties facing the Fisher family. The ambassador of a small country spends his final moments of life in conversation with his assassin. If you love JG Ballard, you should read Anna Kavan. Few novelists, Ballard said, “could match the intensity of her vision”, and that same intensity fuels her stories. The narrator of “A Bright Green Field” claims to encounter the same, unnaturally vivid field of grass wherever she goes. It’s an unlikely candidate for a bete noire, but Kavan’s descriptions of a mountain town in the gathering gloom, loomed over by “the sheer emerald wall that was the meadow”, create an atmosphere of powerful unease. “Extra” by Yiyun Li (2003) You and three other players solve a hotel murder mystery together, but the decisions you make change the story and survival of various characters. A character finishes creating the first time travel machine, only to discover it can only move in two-minute increments.

Sarah’s father sends her from Canada to Grenoble as a way of ending her relationship with a married professor, but she ends up on the French Riviera. There she meets Roy, an ex-prison inspector, and rashly moves in with him. The story’s charge arises from a combination of wit, the awfulness of the relationship’s collapse, and Gallant’s profound grasp of the psychology of love affairs. She talks about her characters in a way that makes you feel your own perceptiveness is being worked like a muscle. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) An underwater city's infrastructure—and the people who live there—is threatened by an environmental breach that must be resolved in 48-hours.

An acting coach attempts to create the greatest theater company around, looking to both the actors and the audience. Born in Palermo in 1896, Lampedusa was a learned prince who died before his work was published. In addition to his celebrated novel The Leopard, he left behind some short stories, including “The Siren”, a mysterious masterpiece that jolts and haunts me every time I read it. It contains two narrative planes, two central protagonists, two settings, two tonal registers and two points of view. There are even two titles; though published as “La Sirena”, it was originally called “Lighea”, the name of the siren, portrayed as a 16-year-old girl. Lampedusa’s description renders this fatefully seductive creature specific, vulnerable and real. Jhumpa Lahiri Only afterwards did I discover that this was in fact a piece of densely textured reportage, but it taught me so much about how to write a short story that I will always see it as one. A young man, Werner Hoeflich, trapped by a fire, escapes by leaping from the window of his New York apartment, across the intervening gap and in through the window of the adjacent building. It has the richness of a novel, the raw and dirty grip of life and was, for me, a revelation. Fine language and a deftly conjured mood are all well and good, but fiction – of whatever length – should thrill. Mark Haddon “The Window Theatre” by Ilse Aichinger (1953) A witch struggling to make ends meet starts to read tarot cards and sell crystals as a side hustle.

Toward the end of the novel, Belly’s attraction to Cam wanes, and after Jeremiah reveals his interest in her, she can no longer deny her crush on Conrad. Unwilling to let her affection remain unspoken, Belly confronts Conrad and tells him that she loves him. He rejects her, which leads to a physical altercation between the Fisher brothers. After Laurel breaks up the fight, Belly discovers the secret behind underlying tension in the house; Susannah’s cancer has returned, and she does not have long to live. Belly switches her attention from romance to supporting the Fisher family through their painful time. She comforts Jeremiah, promises Susannah that she’ll look after Conrad when she’s gone, and listens to Conrad express his devastation. Belly and Conrad share a kiss, but Conrad explains he is too distraught about his mother to start a relationship now.

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