Gelfant - The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story

THE

COLUMBIA COMPANION

TO THE

TWENTIETH-CENTURY
AMERICAN SHORT STORY

THE

COLUMBIA COMPANION

TO THE

TWENTIETH-CENTURY
AMERICAN SHORT STORY

Blanche H. Gelfant, Editor

Lawrence Graver, Assistant Editor

Columbia university press
new york

Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2000 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-50495-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Columbia companion to the twentieth-century American short story / Blanche H. Gelfant, editor.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0231110987 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Short stories, AmericanDictionaries. 2. American fiction20th centuryDictionaries. 3. Short stories, AmericanBio-bibliographyDictionaries. 4. American fiction20th centuryBio-bibliographyDictionaries. 5. Authors, American20th centuryBiographyDictionaries. I. Title: Columbia companion to the 20th century American short story. II. Gelfant, Blanche H., 1922

PS374.S5 C57 2001

831 .010905dc21

00031610

Designed by Chang Jae Lee

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CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

Kerry Ahearn

Oregon State University

Dale M. Bauer

University of Kentucky

Jonathan Baumbach

Brooklyn College

Robert Bell

Williams College

Lauren Berlant

University of Chicago

Erik Bledsoe

University of Tennessee

Kasia Boddy

University College, London

Jane Bradley

University of Toledo

Leonor Briscoe

Burke, Virginia

Suzanne Hunter Brown

Dartmouth College

Emily Budick

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

John Burt

Brandeis University

Robert Caserio

Temple University

Maria Elena Cepeda

University of Michigan

Nancy Cook

University of Rhode Island

Robert Corber

Trinity College

John Crawford

University of New Mexico

Elizabeth Cummins

University of Missouri

Morris Dickstein

City University of New York

Arthur Edelstein

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Stephen E. Fix

Williams College

Edward Foster

Stevens Institute of Technology

Robert Fox

Columbus, Ohio

Rhonda Frederick

Boston College

Andrew Furman

Florida Atlantic University

Fred Gardaphe

State University of New York at Stony Brook

Blanche H. Gelfant

Hanover, New Hampshire

Melody Graulich

Utah State University

Lawrence Graver

Williams College

Joan Wylie Hall

University of Mississippi

James Hannah

Texas A&M University

Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper

Decatur, Georgia

Tobey Herzog

Wabash College

Eric Heyne

University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Allen Hibbard

Middle Tennessee State University

Molly Hite

Cornell University

Greg Johnson

Kennesaw State University

Carla Kaplan

University of Southern California

Alice Kessler-Harris

Columbia University

Michelle Latiolais

University of California, Irvine

Luis Leal

University of California, Santa Barbara

Shirley Geok-lin Lim

University of California, Santa Barbara

Amy Ling

University of Wisconsin

Glen Love

University of Oregon

Wendy Martin

Claremont Graduate University

Peter Mascuch

University of New Hampshire

Charlotte S. McClure

Atlanta, Georgia

Lee Mitchell

Princeton University

David Mogen

Colorado State University

John Murphy

Brigham Young University

James Nagel

University of Georgia

Jay Parini

Middlebury College

Richard Pearce

Wheaton College

Sanford Pinsker

Franklin and Marshall University

Donald Pizer

Tulane University

Horace Porter

University of Iowa

Ruth Prigozy

Hofstra University

Janet R. Raiffa

New York, New York

Josna Rege

Dartmouth College

Russell Reising

University of Toledo

Gary Richards

University of New Orleans

Julie Rivkin

Connecticut College

Deborah Rosenfelt

University of Maryland

James Ruppert

University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Roshni Rustomji-Kerns

Stanford University

Elaine Safer

University of Delaware

Ramon Saldvar

Stanford University

Geoffrey Sanborn

Williams College

Gary Scharnhorst

University of New Mexico

John Seelye

University of Florida

Sofia Shafquat

Encinitas, California

Mark Shechner

State University of New York at Buffalo

Karen Shepard

Williams College

Ben Siegel

California State Polytechnic University

David L. Smith

Williams College

Larry Smith

Firelands College of Bowling Green State University

Werner Sollors

Harvard University

Silvia Spitta

Dartmouth College

Phillip Stambovsky

New Haven, Connecticut

David Stouck

Simon Fraser University

Rodger L. Tarr

Illinois State University

James Warren

Columbia University Press

Dennis Washburn

Dartmouth College

Barry Weller

University of Utah

Max Westbrook

University of Texas, Austin

Kenny Williams

Duke University

Mary Ann Wilson

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Norma C. Wilson

University of South Dakota

Mary Ann Wimsatt

University of South Carolina

Dede Yow

Kennesaw State University

Zhou Xiaojing

State University of New York at Buffalo

A story can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth.

Andre Dubus

D esignated a companion to the twentieth-century American short story, this collection of essays is both an accessory to the stories and writers it presents and a guide. As accessory or aide, it accompanies the stories, providing information about their writers lives and literary achievements. As a guide, it points out literary paths taken by American writers whose works are admired throughout the world. By necessity, it has left many roads untraveled. Readers may wish that the Columbia Companion could have pursued these paths, some of them paved recently by best-selling young storytellers such as Nathan Englander and Melissa Bank, whose work appeared after this book went to press, as did the prize-winning stories of Barbara Mujica and Judy Doenges. Their absence and that of certain older, established writers argues for a sequel to The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story, a project perhaps for the twenty-first century.

Each of the essays is self-contained and can be read singly or in any sequence. However, if read chronologically, according to the writers dates, the collected essays trace a history of the short storys development from the beginning of the century to the present, from Jack London and O. Henry to Andre Dubus, Joy Williams, Tobias Wolff, Deborah Eisenberg, David Leavitt, Lydia Davis, Nicholasa Mohr, Amrico Paredes, and a dazzling diversity of others. Two sets of essays suggest this diversity: thematic essays that group together stories sharing a particular motif, cultural identity, or literary practice; and biographical essays, the body of the book, that focus on individual writers and their work. Writers mentioned in the thematic essaysLangston Hughes, Bernard Malamud, or Sandra Cisneros, for instancemay reappear in a biographical essay. Thus they are both contextualized and particularized, placed within a literary group and presented as unique artists.