In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393319075 ISBN 13: 9780393319071

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999

Synopsis

An exciting new anthology by the editors of the popular In Short, about which Publishers Weekly said: "Even readers skeptical of short-attention-span publishing will find these shorts addictive."

In their previous collection Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones coined the term "short" for those creative nonfiction pieces ― literary rather than informational, and characteristically short ― that are attracting our finest writers. Now, with a more introspective focus, this new collection emphasizes the personal as "a way of seeing the world, of expressing an interior life. It is intimate without being maudlin, it is private without being secret." From Harriet Doerr's recollection of a halcyon time to Josephine Jacobsen's reverie on memory, In Brief offers vivid glimpses into the ways experience can be shaped in language that is fresh and inventive. The seventy-two authors here include the known ― John McPhee, Cythia Ozick, James Salter ― as well as remarkable new writers. Essays (all under 2000 words) range from Frank McCourt's search for his father in the pubs of Limerick to William Maxwell's thoughts about growing old; from Charles Baxter's early experience of reading to Brady Udall's confession as a liar. Patricia Hampl recalls meals at her grandmother's house, while Jane Brox contemplates the meaning of bread. In each piece, imagination becomes a way to explore reality. The real world we are fortunate enough to live in is revealed as endlessly rich and deep.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Paumier Jones lives in Rochester.  Jones, who teaches creative nonfiction, has a degree in library science.

Writer and educator Judith Kitchen (1941–2014) was the cofounder of the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.

From Kirkus Reviews

An anthology of sleek, mostly savvy, short bits of creative nonfiction that focus on the theme of the personal. One might justifiably feel that the trend toward such micro essays panders to attention spans that have been eclipsed by television and the endless barrage of advertisements and sound-bytes which we now experience as normal. But, then again, there is something so delicious about a quick literary nugget that you can gulp down in those five or six minutes of transitional time between ``getting things done,'' which so often serves as our free time these days. The best of these shorts (there are 72 in the collection) represent the compression of a wide range of human emotion and experience into a single objecta sort of self-reflexive literary fetishization. N. Scott Momaday's ``The Indian Dog,'' for example, accesses fierceness of spirit and human longing with the description of a five-dollar dog that refuses to stay with his new master. Ariel Dorfman manages to evoke the multitude of complex emotions experienced by Argentinean refugees sheltering in their embassy during the military takeover in Chile with the image of a blanket thrown over the wall by an unseen person who is shot before he or she can climb to safety. David Shields condenses desire into the longing for a boy-scout belt; Kelly Simon resolves an encounter with fame by chewing a piece of gum left behind by Frank Sinatra. The new style of this short prose writing is perhaps best reflected by the degree to which pieces such as the chapter from Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes (in which he searches the pubs of Limerick for his drunken father), seem out of place. McCourt's conversational, narrative style seems to cheat the spirit of mosaic which characterizes many of the shorter shorts. Shorts are coming into their own as a literary genre resistance is futile! -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0393319075
• ISBN 13: 9780393319071
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Jones Mary Paumier, Kitchen Judith