Shena Mackay: Searching for the Perfect Short Story

Review by Max Scratchmann

Okay, so call it a thirst for perfection or just sheer goddamned cussedness on my part, but is the short story not the most neglected and abused literary form in the English language?

On the one hand there is the genre story, plodding stolidly away within its set parameters and casting desperately about itself for a twist ending or clever one-liner to close; while on the other there’s the pretentious literary piece that rambles on forever, usually dripping in exotic metaphors and erudite turns of phrase, though often devoid of characters or plot. Honestly, it’s enough to make this Blogger yearn for that brief window in history when, in the immediate postwar publishing boom, magazines on both sides of the Atlantic commissioned intelligent short fiction in the mould of Scott Fitzgerald to grace their pages, and forgotten masters of this concise art entertained and enthralled a hungry readership for a brief decade.