Grant Faulkner's 2021 collection of short stories, All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, has only 130 pages but 28 titled stories. They therefore range in length from twenty pages to a paragraph which might in some works be considered prose poems. He says in an Author's Note that he wrote the first in 1991, the last just before the manuscript was due to the publisher.
100 Word Story publishes stories that are exactly 100 words long. Stories published in 100 Word Story have been included on Wigleaf’s Top (Very) Short Fictions list and anthologized in the annual Best Small Fictions series and W.W Norton's New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction. Here is an example Faulkner titled Life Knowledge:
"She searched for the perfect place to live. She changed her name from Clara to Claire She drank one too many cups of coffee and then one too few. She painted porcelain dolls, then learned how to play the banjo. She made a promise in her diary never to get Botox. She asked, "Why do people hate the French?" She carried a pistol in her purse for protection, shampooed with anti-lice shampoo just in case. She tossed bread crumbs to golden carp and watched them mouth silent O's in the water. Poor things were too dumb to know anything about life."
So what is it? A story? An anecdote? A fragment? A poem without line breaks? Does it matter as long as it touches the reader—the reason I chose it. It may look easy. A hundred words? Ha! Until you try to write one. It's like trying to write a decent sonnet
Given the varying lengths and worlds of these 28 stories it is inevitable that readers (this reader) will respond more positively to some than others. I especially enjoyed Faulkner's longer stories in which he has more room to develop characters and situations. I found something to respond to in almost every one 28 and, personally more valuable, something that provoked an idea, a character, a situation.
Thank you Black Lawrence Press for sending me a copy.
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