“Fiction authors weigh in on their favorite short stories in these soulful reflections . . . the pensive selections offer revealing insight into how they think about literature. Bookworms will want to dig into this.” —Publishers Weekly
A moving and inspiring anthology of masterful essays on stories that touch the hearts and minds of readers.
“A writer,” Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow once said, “is a reader who is moved to emulation.” New York Times bestselling novelist and memoirist Andre Dubus III took that idea and invited acclaimed authors to write about short stories that altered their view of life and their place in it—short stories that, ultimately, made them want to write something substantial themselves.
Here is Richard Russo on “Builders” by Richard Yates and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Joyce Carol Oates on John Updike’s “A&P.” Tobias Wolff on Hawthorne’s “Wakefield.” Michael Cunningham on James Joyce’s “The Dead.” And much, much more. Readers will not only gain new insight into these masterfully written stories but also the impact each had on the contributors’ lives and work.
The fifty contributors are T.C. Boyle, Russell Banks, Richard Bausch, Robert Boswell, Charles Baxter, Ann Beattie, Madison Smartt Bell, Ron Carlson, Lan Samantha Chang, Michael Cunningham, Junot Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Emma Donoghue, Stuart Dybek, Dagoberto Gilb, Julia Glass, Mary Gordon, Lauren Groff, Jennifer Haigh, Jane Hamilton, Ron Hansen, Paul Harding, Ann Hood, Pam Houston, Gish Jen, Charles Johnson, Phil Klay, Dennis Lehane, Lois Lowry, Colum McCann, Sue Miller, Rick Moody, Antonya Nelson, Bich Nguyen, Joyce Carol Oates, Stewart O’Nan, Peter Orner, ZZ Packer, Ann Patchett, Edith Pearlman, Jayne Ann Phillips, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Anna Quindlen, Ron Rash, Richard Russo, Dani Shapiro, Mona Simpson, Jess Walter, Tobias Wolff, and Meg Wolitzer.
Reaching Inside will remind you why you fell in love with reading.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Andre Dubus III
Ann Patchett
“Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin
“The Long-Distance Runner,” Grace Paley
Mary Gordon
“I Stand Here Ironing,” Tillie Olsen
“Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” Katherine Anne Porter
Madison Smartt Bell
“King of the Mountain,” George Garrett
“Sredni Vashtar,” Saki
Meg Wolitzer
“Clay,” James Joyce
“Yours,” Mary Robison
Dani Shapiro
“Circular Ruins,” Jorge Luis Borges
“Getting Closer,” Steven Millhauser
ZZ Packer
“The Paper Lantern,” Stuart Dybek
“Solo Song: For Doc,” James Alan McPherson
Ann Beattie
“Bliss,” Katherine Mansfield
“The Prince,” Craig Nova
T.C. Boyle
“The Brother,” Robert Coover
“The Sorrows of the Flesh,” Isabel Huggan
Anthony Doerr
“The Garden of Forking Paths,” Jose Louis Borges
“Continuity of Parks,” Julio Cortazar
Gish Jen
“Barn Burning,” William Faulkner
“Bartleby, The Scrivener,” Herman Melville
Stewart O’Nan
“Winter Dreams,” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Boys,” Rick Moody
Tobias Wolff
“Wakefield,” Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” Joyce Carol Oates
Jess Walter
“The School,” Donald Barthelme
“Bullet in the Brain,” Tobias Wolff
Kirstin Valdez Quade
“Love,” William Maxwell
“Dance of the Happy Shades,” Alice Munro
Mona Simpson
“The Lady with the Dog,” Anton Chekhov
“Good People,” David Foster Wallace
Richard Russo
“The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson
“The Builders,” Richard Yates
Ron Rash
“Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You,” William Gay
“A Worn Path,” Eudora Welty
Anna Quindlen
“The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry
“Wants,” Grace Paley
Jayne Anne Phillips
“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor
“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” Delmore Schwartz
Edith Pearlman
“A Love Match,” Sylvia Townsend Warner
“Roman Fever,” Edith Wharton
Peter Orner
“Guests of the Nation,” Frank O’Connor
“Welcome,” John Edgar Wideman
Joyce Carol Oates
“Battle Royal,” Ralph Ellison
“A&P,” John Updike
Bich Minh Nguyen
“Cathedral,” Raymond Carver
“In the American Society,” Gish Jen
Antonya Nelson
“Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad
“The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor,” Deborah Eisenberg
Rick Moody
“The Company of Wolves,” Angela Carter
“The Use of Force,” William Carlos Williams
Sue Miller
“Spanish in the Morning,” Edward P. Jones
“The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien
Colum McCann
“A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly,” Benedict Kiely
“The Love Object,” Edna O’Brien
Lois Lowry
“A Small, Good Thing,” Raymond Carver
“The Management of Grief,” Bharati Mukherjee
Dennis Lehane
“Why Don’t You Dance,” Raymond Carver
“The Second Tree from the Corner,” E.B. White
Phil Klay
“The Grand Inquisitor,” Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“The Harvest,” Amy Hempel
Charles Johnson
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce
“Trumpeter,” John Gardner
Pam Houston
“Sara Cole: A Type of Love Story,” Russell Banks
“A Note on the Type,” Ron Carlson
Ann Hood
“Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid
“Home,” Jayne Anne Phillips
Paul Harding
“The Swimmer,” John Cheever
“The Jewels of the Cabots,” John Cheever
Ron Hansen
“To Build a Fire,” Jack London
“Master and Man,” Leo Tolstoy
Jane Hamilton
“Goodbye My Brother,” John Cheever
“White Angel,” Michael Cunningham
Jennifer Haigh
“The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street,” Mavis Gallant
“Family Furnishings,” Alice Munro
Lauren Groff
“The Overcoat,” Nikolai Gogol
“The Shawl,” Cynthia Ozick
Robert Boswell
“Madagascar,” Steven Schwartz
“The Death of Ivan Ilych,” Leo Tolstoy
Russell Banks
“The Artificial Nigger,” Flannery O’Connor
“No Place for You My Love,” Eudora Welty
Julia Glass
“A Father’s Story,” Andre Dubus
“Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dagoberto Gilb
“La Noche Buena,” Tomas Rivera
“Paso del Norte,” Juan Rulfo
Stuart Dybek
“The Grasshopper and Bell Cricket,” Yasunari Kawabata
“Birds,” John O’Brien
Emma Donoghue
“An Attack of Hunger,” Maeve Brennan
“The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Junot Diaz
“Bloodchild,” Octavia Butler
“Night Women,” Edwidge Danticat
Michael Cunningham
“Work,” Denis Johnson
“The Dead,” James Joyce
Lan Samantha Chang
“French Lesson I: Le Meurtre,” Lydia Davis
“The Cask of Amontillado,” Edgar Allan Poe
Ron Carlson
“Babylon Revisited,” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe
Charles Baxter
“The Corn Planting,” Sherwood Anderson
“A Conversation with My Father,” Grace Paley
Richard Bausch
“Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway
“The Real Thing,” Henry James