These Short Stories Don't Have Much Plot — And That's Their Beauty
In her debut story collection, New Yorker editor Clare Sestanovich takes anodyne everyday moments and layers them with meaning and observation for a series of snapshots that reveal a whole world
Queen of the contemporary short story once said, "a short story is a photograph; a novel is a film." The short story, like a photograph, lets you look at something familiar and have a newly satisfying experience of it. It lets you pause at, say, a poorly-framed, overexposed image of a banal object like an armchair and appreciate that it's frayed, and a pleasing mustard color. That it belongs to someone who thought to document it. That beyond the chair lies a whole world. You do not need a plot that will carry you through a consistent world. Instead, you're satisfied if the snapshot, overexposed and off-center
