Category: Short Story Review

  • Short Story Review: “Family Lore” by Téa Obreht

    (The short story “Family Lore” by Téa Obreht appeared in the November 9th, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Tabby Booth

    I have been trying to find the source of this quote, and I believe that either Edward Albee or David Mamet said it, but it goes something like this: All modern drama revolves around the idea of deception, or characters hiding the truth from each other. (I do know that characters deceiving each other is like 99% of all the plots for situation comedies.) This dramatic device makes total sense; a character wants something, so they lie to others to achieve their goal. And there is another element, which is the penalty that will occur if the lie or deception is exposed. This is the risk, which frames how powerful the character’s want is, but it also shows what will happen if the lie falls apart, which you know, creates peril and more importantly, drama. It’s a simple device, and in regard to Téa Obreht’s “Family Lore,” a device whose execution in this story was fumbled, leaving the story on flimsy legs.

    “Family Lore” does play a bit like a sit-com. It’s the story of a family returning from the hospital with their new born baby. The husband bumbles his way through issues, trying to solve them as best as he can, all the while trying to keep these issues from his wife. At first, he struggles at finding an inconsequential baby hat that he lost, but then it gets more complicated when he tries to recover a bat, that may have bitten his dog, so he can send it to Animal Protection to test for rabies. See, a rather sit-com like premise, which implies opportunities for complications and comedy. Yet, the husband’s motivations are never solidly concrete in the story. You could make assumptions about his motivation, but as far as I could tell, there was only one line in the third paragraph of the piece; “But his job was to keep the world at bay.” And this line was regarding the husband trying to keep the wife calm when things go bad. Sure, it works as his motivation, but it’s flimsy. I have to say that this is an example of why a writer should “show” and not “tell” the reader. As in, what happens when the wife gets upset? Did it happen in the past, and if so, what was the outcome? How did that outcome affect the husband, let alone the relationship between the two? Obreht does “show” other situations with characters, the neighbors for example, which explain why the husband treats them the way he does. So, I am confused why this fundamental motivation of the story is resigned to just one line.

    This flimsy motivation choice by Obreht does have a ripple effect as the story progresses. As the stakes get raised in the story, and the husband stumbles into more and more lies, I began to question why he was doing this to himself? I understood the lies toward the downstairs neighbor, but why was he lying to Animal Protection, or the upstairs neighbor, or the party goers, and especially his wife. It appeared that if he told the truth to these people, he would have gotten what he wanted easier. It started to build a resentment, and a frustration in me toward the husband. Honestly, if he picked up his phone and told his wife everything, I think it would have solved his problems with a minimum of effort. So, why was he lying?

    It’s as if “Family Lore” was almost there as a story. Which is too bad, because I don’t think The New Yorker publishes very many humorous stories. And it did have all the pieces to be a good one; it was building toward something, I enjoyed how the piece ended, and most importantly, it was funny. It reminds me of another old adage when it comes to a character dealing with a situation that keeps getting more and more out of control; for it all to work, the audience has to understand that the character fully believes that they will still succeed. When you can’t figure out why a character is doing what they’re doing, it’s hard to have confidence that their success is even important.

  • Short Story Review: “Appeasement, Ohio” by George Saunders

    (The short story “Appeasement, Ohio” by George Saunders appeared in the October 26th, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by James L. Amos / Getty

    How hard should a writer make a reader work? That was the question I kept asking myself as I read George Saunders’ “Appeasement, Ohio” which is a quirky little story. I’m not saying that getting though it was like reading Joyce’s Ulysses, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being asked to work at reading this story.

    How to describe the it? Lots of moving parts; family, cousins, kids, falling outs, reconnection, loyalty, obligations, conspiracies, tough love, and history. There is no secret, or big reveal in this story, but getting into the details of how this piece unfolds feels like I would be killing some of the fun of reading it in the first place. I will say this, the story did feel like it was inorganically structured to have three storylines that were supposed to weave together – or possibly not – but either way it stuck out as being manufactured rather than authentically blending into the narrative.

    What I wrestled with in “Appeasement, Ohio” was the style that the story was written in. Ultimately, Saunders’ writing style did complement the narrative. With the characters fragmented lives, a wildly unbelievable conspiracy theory, a surreal riot, and the loss of vision, nothing seemed on solid ground here. So, when the writing is chunky, choppy, even repetitive at times, it creates a feeling of disjointed incongruent tangents not fully lining up. This caused me, more than once, to have to go back and reread a section, to verify that I read what I read. For what this story was trying to express, it all successfully came together.

    But it was a bit of work to get there.

  • Short Story Review: “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run” by Kevin Barry

    (The short story “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run” by Kevin Barry appeared in the October 19th, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Illustration by Thomas Colligan; Source photograph from Getty)

    Just about nobody likes getting older. The exception in my life is my kid, who looks forward to every birthday, with the adding another digit to her age. For the rest of us, at some point a switch is flipped, and getting older is something that is dreaded rather than celebrated. Kevin Barry’s story “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run” takes a stab at this predicament, using a group of aging Irish friends, who all belong in a quasi-biker gang, as they journey to send off their mutual friend who recently died.

    The story begins with a solid first paragraph, establishing that what will follow will be humorous as it tackles a somber situation. This approach worked well for the story, which was a very competent piece of writing. Nothing got too serious, as Barry would slip in a joke or two to break any building tension. Motivations were understood, and the interplay between characters felt honest. In all, the story moved at solid clip.

    Yet, nothing happened in this story that wasn’t predictable. You knew they were going to make it to their destination, you knew they were going to say goodbye to their friend, you knew people in the group were going to have an argument, and you knew the main character was going to learn that life was changing, again. This is the reason why I used the word competent to describe this story, because that’s what it was. I could diagram out this story, it was so well constructed. I wouldn’t call it paint by numbers, but it might be two steps away from that.

    What “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run” felt like was a piece of store-bought cake. Sometimes you just want a spongy, sweet piece of cake that hits the spot. It’s a good piece of cake, but five minutes later, you’ve already forgotten about it.

  • Short Story Review: “A Very Safe Place” by Rachel Heng

    (The short story “A Very Safe Place” by Rachel Heng appeared in the October 12th, 2026 Issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Illustration by Vanessa Saba; Source photographs from Getty)

    Rachel Heng’s “A Very Safe Place” is a timely story. Set in Singapore, it confronts the complicated situation of immigration; Its motivations, what constitutes doing the right thing, and the threat of punishment. It also is about a child coming to see the world for what it is, and how disappointing and confusing that can be. All of these are themes and ideas that I applaud in a story – especially one that aims to be as realistic as possible. There is no happy ending here, or nice bow that will wrap everything together. Though sober and stark in its writing, it’s an honesty that is needed when speaking on this subject.

    The story left me feeling melancholic, like there was a dark cloud hanging over all of it. Another way to describe it, is that this story is colored in black in white. Not in a moralistic simplicity, but more for the starkness and complexity of these issues presented. (Like how a black and white movie seems more realistic than color.) The good father who has to make a difficult decision for the safety of his family, a mother whose rigidness keeps her family protected, an immigrant striving for a better life, and a boy slowly coming to understand that the world is filled with complications that aren’t easy to square.

    But, unfortunately, that melancholic started to veer into joylessness as the story neared its end, which made this average length story feel like a trudge. My mind did wander and wonder when this was going to wrap up? That was due to the story playing at one dramatic note of seriousness, with nothing to break the tension, or even to play with fluctuating the tone.

    In the end, “A Very Safe Place” is another good story from Rachel Heng. Where it succeeds most is showing how the boy discovers the larger world he now lives in. Hopefully, this encounter will lead him to a life filled with empathy and compassion, regardless of the consequences.

  • Personal Review: “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson

    Up until a couple of months ago, I hadn’t ever heard of Denis Johnson. (And yes, the rock I live under is very comfortable.) I found out about him from a review of Ted Geltner’s biography of Johnson, Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures. From that article, I was intrigued and put Johnson’s Jesus’ Son on my reading list.

    If I had pushed myself, I could have read the book in a day, but spreading it out over three seemed more appropriate. A couple of things jumped out at me, besides the fact that it was a quick read. First, this book of short stories just oozed 90’s literature, which is strange as most of the stories take place in the 70’s, while the stories themselves were written in the 80’s, and only published in 1992. I can’t fully say why it felt so 90’s, but it Gen-X despondent seemed to be lurking in corners. The second idea the book presented to me is that the drunk/addict poet or writer is rather cliché now. Maybe not as drunken muscled as Hemmingway, Kerouac, or Burkowski, but the stories in the volume ran in the same vein. Here, we are presented with pretty much the same first-person character from story to story, who is too poetic to be a regular run of the mill drunk. No, this is the tragic drunk writer whose writing is their only salvation – the thing that keeps them going.

    That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the book. No, I was struck at how simple, and effortless everything in the stories felt. It carried such weight but drifted on the air. The destruction of a character’s life never felt so beautiful and fragile. No, I get why Jesus’ Son is placed on best of short story collection lists, year after year. Johnson’s stories and writing style has clearly been influential. I was about half way through “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” when it dawned on me how many flash writers must consider Denis Johnson a primary source, with his books lovingly squirreled away on their shelves.

    The final thought that I had while reading this book was that these stories felt like they were fun to write. Some books can feel laborious – not to read that is – such as writing it took time, work, dedication, perseverance to deliver the story exactly the way the writer wanted to tell it. Jesus’ Son felt like it was a blast to write. Either making it all up, or using real life situations, or maybe combining it all together, the end result was a book that felt like it was just as entertaining to write as it was to read.

    Having said all of this, I must now return to my home under the rock. There, I will toss this book up on the shelf, with all the other collections of short stories that I own and wonder how did I miss out on Denis Johnson when he was alive?