Ever since she published her debut novel Prep in 2005, Curtis Sittenfeld has become one of America’s most beloved authors. The novels that have followed – American Wife, Rodham, Romantic Comedy – have all been international bestsellers, with readers drawn to her unique blend of intelligence and humour.
Now, Sittenfeld has returned with Show Don’t Tell, her first short story collection since 2018’s You Think It I’ll Say It. The book comprises of 12 wonderfully witty stories – one of which revisits her protagonist from Prep – each of which manage to build entire worlds in tiny snapshots. A longtime lover of the short story form, here Sittenfeld shares the best collections she has ever read…
Look How Happy I’m Making You by Polly Rosenwaike
“Most of these stories feature pregnancy, childbirth or a new baby. They are understated yet realistic and honest about just how weird that all is, what a shift the arrival of a child is in an adult’s life. I enjoy collections that lean into a theme, possibly reflecting the author’s obsessions at the time they were written, and Look How Happy I’m Making You does this perfectly.”
Doubleday, £9.99
Bobcat and Other Stories by Rebecca Lee
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“About five years ago, my friend Erin gave me a copy of this collection because she was surprised I hadn’t already read it. I hadn’t even heard of it, in fact. But these are weirdly, almost inexplicably riveting stories — often about students, professors, or writers — that capture the texture of life in all its yearning and quirkiness. Like this: “So, no love affairs. As soon as this was declared, it was as if a light had turned on in the room.
Until this point, everyone had been so focused on the great absent man himself and his every desire that nobody had really looked around that carefully. But at this mention that we could not fall in love, we all turned to see who else was there. Each person seemed suddenly so interesting, so vital, a beautiful portal through which one might pass, secretly.”
Text Publishing, £8.99
Interesting Women by Andrea Lee
“Many of Lee’s protagonists are outrageously sophisticated and glamorous Black American women living in Europe, and she writes about them with nuance, detail, and insight. Lee’s first novel, Sarah Phillips, is about a girl growing up in Philadelphia and its tone, topics, and episodic structure influenced my own first novel, Prep. Whenever one of Lee’s stories appears in The New Yorker, which is regularly, it’s a must-read for me.”
Fourth Estate, £11.99
A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley
“Brinkley’s first story collection was published around the same time as my first collection in 2018, and I loved how alert it was to the sorrows and absurdities of life. We’re about the same age and more than a decade apart both attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he’s now a professor.
While his characters vary in age, there’s some implied perspective in his work that for me beautifully reflects what it’s like to have been born in the mid-1970s and now be middle-aged. I’m currently reading his second collection, Witness, which was published in 2024. I especially admire its story “Comfort,” which is an exemplar of a story with a richly ambiguous ending.”
Serpent’s Tail, £8.99
Nobody Gets Out Alive by Leigh Newman
“These stories are set in rural and urban Alaska (and of course urban Alaska is fairly rural by most standards), and often feature privileged and irresponsible white people. Dramatic details of flying on tiny planes or encountering wildlife or extreme weather abound yet are casually dispensed.
When I was the guest editor of the Best American Short Stories anthology in 2020, I selected the story “Howl Palace” “(the protagonist’s nickname for her house) for inclusion, and sentences like this might give a hint why: “I lay back in my recliner and thought how every good thing that had ever happened to me had happened in Howl Palace. And every bad thing too. Forty-three years. Five husbands. Two floatplanes. A lifetime.”
Credit: inews.
