Finally
After four years, I'm finally done with The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. The collection includes stories from her other books.
Break It Down (1986)
Almost No Memory (1997)
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant (2001)
Varieties of Disturbance (2007)
Dana Goodyear's profile of Lydia Davis is worth reading.
One recent morning, Davis sat at her kitchen table with a pocket-size black notebook and a hardcover novel by a popular writer, whom she asked me not to name. “I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like to knock other writers as a matter of principle,” she said. Though enjoyably soap-operatic, the novel, that month’s selection for her book club—local women, wine, family talk—was full of mixed metaphors. “I’ve gotten very alert not just to mixed metaphor but to any writing mistake,” she said. “A little bell goes off in my head first. I know something’s wrong here. Then secondly I see what it is.” She opened the notebook and read a sentence about an acute intimacy that had …
Break It Down (1986)
Almost No Memory (1997)
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant (2001)
Varieties of Disturbance (2007)
Dana Goodyear's profile of Lydia Davis is worth reading.
One recent morning, Davis sat at her kitchen table with a pocket-size black notebook and a hardcover novel by a popular writer, whom she asked me not to name. “I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like to knock other writers as a matter of principle,” she said. Though enjoyably soap-operatic, the novel, that month’s selection for her book club—local women, wine, family talk—was full of mixed metaphors. “I’ve gotten very alert not just to mixed metaphor but to any writing mistake,” she said. “A little bell goes off in my head first. I know something’s wrong here. Then secondly I see what it is.” She opened the notebook and read a sentence about an acute intimacy that had …
