Literary Boldface Names

Last evening Mavis Gallant appeared in New York for the first time in years, at the invitation of Symphony Space on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Gallant’s reputation as one of the great short story writers of the second half of the twentieth century precedes her, and encomiasts Michael Ondaatje, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Russell Banks provided both insight into Gallant’s career and a discussion of the influence of her writing on their careers, with poet Edward Hirsch as the master of ceremonies. The standing-room-only audience was chock-full of New York’s literary luminaries: Fran Lebowitz, Francine Prose, Wallace Shawn, and Monique Truong among them, as well as recent Whiting Award winner Suji Kwock Kim, Jeff Seroy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York Review of Books owner Rea Hederman and Deborah Wiley, Chairman of the National Book Foundation. The highlight, of course, was to hear Gallant read one of her own stories, in a bright, expressive voice tinged with irony. Not all writers read their own work so well. Her collected stories are not readily available, so try Paris Stories from Random House, although one hopes at some point her entire oeuvre will be collected in a solid paperback edition.

Today’s other short story recommendation: Pastoralia by George Saunders. The title story about workers in a “living history museum” is absolutely hilarious. Published in paper by Riverhead/Penguin.