THE BEST STORY OF THE YEAR?

BookFox's choices for best short story collections of 2008 include a number of books that were featured on The Roving Editor. It is especially gratifying to see Glen Pourciau's Invite on the list, as this a strong debut from one of the most interesting new writers to emerge this year.

Donald Ray Pollock has attracted more coverage than Glen, but he deserves all the praise he has received. The challenge for him now will be to produce a worthy follow-up to Knockemstiff. Nam Le's debut collection, The Boat, and Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth are also excellent choices.

One story I managed to overlook on its appearance in the New Yorker in September was 'The Noble Truths of Suffering' by Aleksandar Hemon. Set in Sarajevo, this is a darkly funny exploration of the writing life which shows how creativity can find inspiration in the midst of death, destruction and domesticity. I am grateful to another of our featured authors, Joshua Ferris, who has named it as 'the best story of the year' in Granta's year-end round-up.

I would welcome nominations from readers of their favourite writers of short fiction in 2008, or for names we should be looking out for in 2009. Judging by the interest I have had in my post on Wells Tower, I fully expect him to feature prominently in next year's literary lists.

'DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME'

Amos Oz is an another of those eminent living writers whose work I have only just sampled for the first time.

'Waiting', in this week's New Yorker, is a profound and powerfully atmospheric tale. Set in an almost deserted Israeli village on a sleepy Friday afternoon, it reads like an existential ghost story. The ghost in question is Benny's Avni's wife Nava, who has disappeared leaving only a note that says, 'Don't worry about me.' (That's a hell of a note to leave. If Raymond Carver had written the story, that's probably what it would have been called.)

Benny, head of the District Council and pillar of the community, doesn't so much wait for Nava as embark on a journey in search of a woman he has never really known. All the while he is shadowed by a stray dog, which appears to be showing him the way:

'He asked himself, Would it not be better to go straight home? After all, she might have returned and was perhaps resting, puzzled by his absence, maybe even worried about him. But the thought of the empty house terrified him, and he went on, limping, following the dog, who never looked back, his muzzle lowered as if sniffing the way.'

I was reminded of the mundane, yet menacing terrain of John Cheever's 'The Swimmer'. In Oz's story, Benny's wanderings take him to a bomb shelter and the school where his wife teaches: 'The school’s metal gates were already locked for the Sabbath. Both the building and the playground were surrounded by an iron fence topped with barbed wire.'

I don't know if 'Waiting' is from a forthcoming collection, but there is at least one volume of Amos Oz's stories in print, which I look forward to investigating further.

LONDON CALLING

I've recently come across two excellent magazines offering online literary content. The Drawbridge has published work by the likes of Tobias Wolff, Siri Hustvedt, Irvine Welsh and DBC Pierre. The current issue features an excerpt from José Saramago's new novel, though, as with most of the articles, you'll have to purchase the print edition to read the full text.

I first came across Salena Godden's name in a mailing from Litro magazine. Her writing has also appeared in The Drawbridge, and you can read her entertaining story, 'The Walrus and the Diamond Ring' here. Like The Drawbridge, Litro is a London-based publication. It was 'founded in 2005 by Mike Fell to provide commuters and office workers with a short story every week. Mike came up with the idea of Litro after finishing Dubliners by James Joyce somewhere near Mornington Crescent.' An admirable enterprise. I was glad to discover interesting work by two new names, Carol Farrelly and Deborah Nash.

THE READING WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

The Roving Editor spends rather less time in New York than in North Yorkshire, so unfortunately I missed Deb Olin Unferth's event at the MercBar this week. If her readings are as entertaining as this YouTube clip suggests, it would have been well worth going along. Her phrasing and delivery of a story entitled 'Deb Olin Unferth' reminded me, weirdly, of Gil Scott Heron, though the content is uniquely (and literally) her own.

I heard of Deb Olin Unferth through Ron Hogan's always diverting blog, Beatrice, and discovered a few short pieces by her here, and here. The themes of theft and tourism seem to loom large in her work, and the sense of humour is bone-dry. I look forward to her debut novel, Vacation, though this doesn't appear to have been picked up by a UK publisher as yet.

MEET WELLS TOWER

There's more than a touch of Saki in 'Leopard', a short story by Wells Tower in this week's New Yorker. Both writers seem to share an instinctive understanding of the battle lines separating children from adults. In 'Leopard', as in the collection Beasts and Super-Beasts, the animal kingdom is a metaphor for the forces of nature that can invade the most ordered human existence.

Wells Tower is a new (and unusual) name, but something tells me we will be hearing it more often in the future. Oh, and I must also thank the author for adding a new word to my vocabulary: everything about his story is copacetic, in fact.

UPDATE: Read The Roving Editor's review of Wells Tower's debut collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, here.

A DREAM COME TRUE

On this momentous day, some amazing non-fiction for a change.

A WRITER RECOMMENDS: GLEN POURCIAU

"Finding new writers is hard." This is how Glen Pourciau responded when I asked him to name any emerging authors whose work had impressed him recently. He's dead right, which is why I don't post every day of the week. The Roving Editor welcomes recommendations from readers, and particularly from readers who happen to be writers too. Recently Donald Ray Pollock gave us his choices, and now it is the turn of Glen, author of the fine short story collection, Invite.

"The writers that come to mind are Cate Kennedy, Benjamin Percy, and Ander Monson," he told me. "Cate Kennedy had a story in the New Yorker a couple of years ago that I thought was significantly good. It was called 'Black Ice' and it has also been published under the title 'Cold Snap'. ... Her collection is called Dark Roots.

"Benjamin Percy has gotten pretty well known. He's published two collections [Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk] and has had a couple of stories in the Paris Review. He won their Plimpton Prize. One of his Paris Review stories was reprinted in The Barcelona Review."

And finally... "Ander Monson published a distinctive collection a couple of years ago called Other Electricities."

Thanks for these pointers, Glen. Watch this space for more word of mouth from writers we admire at The Roving Editor.