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Tag: Irwin Shaw
February 2016 favorites
February 2016
The February stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.
- ‘An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge’ by Ambrose Bierce
- ‘A Horseman In The Sky’ by Ambrose Bierce
- ‘Slave On The Block’ by Langston Hughes
- ‘The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County’ by Mark Twain
- ‘Killed At Resaca’ by Ambrose Bierce
- ‘Gimpel The Fool’ by Isaac Bashevis Singer
- ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ by Hans Christian Andersen
- ‘Four Days In Dixie’ by Ambrose Bierce
- ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ by Raymond Carver
- ‘The Offshore Pirate’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- ‘Me And Miss Mandible’ by Donald Barthelme
- ‘The Eighty-Yard Run’ by Irwin Shaw
- ‘A Baffled Ambuscade’ by Ambrose Bierce
- ‘Beginners’ by Raymond Carver
- ‘What We Don’t Know Hurts Us’ by Mark Schorer
- ‘Durling, Or The Faithless Wife’ by Sean O’Faolain
- ‘First Husband’ by Antonya Nelson
- ‘Somewhere Else’ by Grace Paley
- ‘Long Walk To Forever’ by Kurt Vonnegut
- ‘Zapatos’ by T. Coraghessan Boyle
What do you think about this list? As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.
‘The Eighty-Yard Run’ by Irwin Shaw
The Eighty-Yard Run by Irwin Shaw, 1955 Continue reading
May 2015 favorites
May 2015
The May stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.
- ‘Medal From Jerusalem’ by Irwin Shaw
- ‘A Silver Dish’ by Saul Bellow
- ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ by Ernest Hemingway
- ‘One Off The Short List’ by Doris Lessing
- ‘Neighbors’ by Diane Oliver
- ‘Drenched In Light’ by Zora Neale Hurston
- ‘The Snows Of Kilimanjaro’ by Ernest Hemingway
- ‘Eli, The Fanatic’ by Philip Roth
- ‘The Gift Of The Prodigal’ by Peter Taylor
- ‘Che Ti Dice La Patria?’ by Ernest Hemingway
- ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’ by Ernest Hemingway
- ‘The New Order’ by Nancy Hale
- ‘Three Million Yen’ by Yukio Mishima
- ‘The Supper’ by Tadeusz Borowski
- ‘The Interior Castle’ by Jean Stafford
- ‘How I Contemplated The World From The Detroit House Of Correction And Began My Life Over Again’ by Joyce Carol Oates
- ‘A Simple Enquiry’ by Ernest Hemingway
- ‘Janus’ by Ann Beattie
- ‘Family Portrait’ by Sherman Alexie
- ‘Champion’ by Ring Lardner
- ‘The End Of The World’ by Dino Buzzati
‘Medal From Jerusalem’ by Irwin Shaw
Medal From Jerusalem by Irwin Shaw, 1946 Continue reading
July 2014 favorites
July 2014
The July stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.
1. ‘Hot Ice’ by Stuart Dybek
2. ‘The Babysitter’ by Robert Coover
3. ‘Jeeves And The Impending Doom’ by P.G. Wodehouse
4. ‘A Solo Song: For Doc’ by James Alan McPherson
5. ‘City Boy’ by Leonard Michaels
6. ‘You’re Ugly, Too’ by Lorrie Moore
7. ‘The Flats Road’ by Alice Munro
8. ‘Greasy Lake’ by T. Coraghessan Boyle
9. ‘Train’ by Joy Williams
10. ‘Testimony Of Pilot’ by Barry Hannah
11. ‘The Joy Luck Club’ by Amy Tan
12. ‘Liars In Love’ by Richard Yates
13. ‘How To Date A Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, Or Halfie)’ by Junot Diaz
14. ‘A Poetics For Bullies’ by Stanley Elkin
15. ‘Greenwich Time’ by Ann Beattie
16. ‘Pretty Ice’ by Mary Robison
17. ‘Lechery’ by Jayne Anne Phillips
18. ‘Here Come The Maples’ by John Updike
19. ‘Territory’ by David Leavitt
20. ‘Bridging’ by Max Apple
21. ‘The Circling Hand’ by Jamaica Kincaid
22. ‘Are These Actual Miles?’ by Raymond Carver
23. ‘The Other Wife’ by Colette
24. ‘A.V. Laider’ by Max Beerbohm
25. ‘White Rat’ by Gayl Jones
26. ‘Search Through The Streets Of The City’ by Irwin Shaw
27. ‘The Dead Man’ by Horacio Quiroga
28. ‘A Life In The Day Of A Writer’ by Tess Slesinger
29. ‘In The Heart Of The Heart Of The Country’ by William Gass
30. ‘The Indian Uprising’ by Donald Barthelme
31. ‘The Facts Of Life’ by Somerset Maugham
‘Search Through The Streets Of The City’ by Irwin Shaw
Search Through The Streets Of The City by Irwin Shaw, 1942
The magic trick:
Capturing well the feeling of having said too much
There is a feeling, I’m not proud to admit I’ve known on more than one occasion, in which a person in a flurry of emotion loses track of right and wrong. This person must express their feelings at all cost, putting the receiver in an impossible and, usually unfair, position. The guilty party almost immediately realizes the mistake, knows the expression will not be reciprocated, and the whole scene ends very badly. It’s not pleasant, but it happens, as this story bears witness. And that’s quite a trick on Shaw’s part.
The selection:
“Two years,” Paul said. “I’ve gone out with a lot of girls in the last two years.” He shrugged. “They’ve bored me and I’ve bored them. I keep looking at every woman who passes to see if it’s you. All the girls I go out with bawl the hell out of me for it. I’ve been walking around, following girls with dark hair to see if it’ll turn out to be you, and girls with a fur jacket like that old one you had, and girls that walk in that silly, beautiful way you walk. I’ve been searching the streets of the city for you for two years and this is the first time I’ve admitted it even to myself…”
Short Story Magic Tricks 