Linking Story

Like many writers, when I started seriously writing fiction, I focused on writing short stories, as opposed to a novel. I loved reading and studying short fiction (still do). People who mistakenly believe that writing short stories is merely a stepping stone to writing novels are doing a disservice to short fiction. They seem to believe that the short story is a lesser artistic form, but anyone who has read a great story or tried to write a decent one, knows the demands of crafting a short story are not lesser at all.

I found myself in a particularly tricky place when I realized I was writing a linked short story collection that had a novelistic arc. Was I now demeaning the short story by disguising it as a novel? Or was I writing a novel but too wedded to the short story structure? In the end I didn’t worry too much about these concerns, because the linked structure came about organically, as a way to learn more about this girl named Elise.

When I wrote the first stories for Talismans I had no idea that they would be the beginning of a linked, or more specifically in this case, novel-through-stories collection. Years before I had written a story about a character Elise and her mother, which, eventually, through many revisions, became the story “Fur Elise.” A few years later I wrote a story about a girl in Korea who falls in love with a Korean, and was surprised to discover that girl was Elise. Elise, I realized, had more than one story to tell, and I wrote more to learn what those stories were.

Even though I enjoyed working on the collection (and working and working and working), I didn’t realize what an ambitious project it would be. Linked collections require that a story work well individually as a separate piece, contribute to the arc of the collection (work as part of a novel), and echo, repeat, and build on images from other pieces. It’s a tall order.

On the other hand, I can’t see how Talismans could have developed any other way—Elise’s journey would not have worked well as a conventional novel. Elise’s story came to me in episodic form, focusing on key moments in her life that led to decisions and turning points that affected her future. Presenting Elise’s life through these contained but linked stories just felt right. And I enjoyed the freedom of playing with point of view, tense, structure, and form that individual stories allowed me; in fact I believe that playing with those elements gave me more insight into Elise than one, consistent narrative form would have allowed.

Even before I wrote Talismans, I was a fan of the linked collection (also sometimes known as a “novel through stories” or “short story cycle”). I’d read some classic collections and then read VCFA faculty member Nance Van Winckel’s linked collection Curtain Creek Farm (each story is told by a different resident in a Washington commune). Van Winckel’s collection inspired me to continue reading more contemporary collections, which helped me get a feel for how I wanted to structure and organize my own work.

I confess that the recent popular linked collection Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout is still on my bookshelf unread, something I keeping promising to remedy soon. A student recommended another recent popular collection, which I did read. More of this World and Maybe Another by Barb Johnson, traces a group of friends over several decades in pre-Katrina New Orleans. For those of you interested in reading (and writing) linked collections, here are ten more recommendations that include newer work and also some classics.

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Many consider this quirky 1919 collection that traces the life of protagonist George Willard in his small Ohio town to be not only a classic, but also one of the first linked collections.

In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway. One of Hemingway’s mentors was Anderson, and he followed in his mentor’s footsteps with his own collection of linked stories that include the famous Nick Adams stories.

The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro. This linked collection follows the life of Del Jordan. Munro is still one of the best short story writers out there, and I recommend this early work to fans and newbies alike

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. This classic works on so many levels—as a linked story collection, as metafiction, as an examination of the effects of the Vietnam War. Haunting and beautifully written.

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank was a commercial and critical hit when it was published in the late 1990s. The protagonist chronicles her almost-doomed quest for love with wit and honesty.

Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. This heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting collection of stories about a drug addict searching for redemption will pull you in with the prose and humor alone.

After finishing Jesus’ Son, I would read Nami Mun’s Miles From Nowhere, which is billed as a novel, but to me reads more like a novel through stories.

Similar to Mun’s book, Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad is also considered a novel (which I can agree with on some points) but each chapter is contained and can be read like a linked short story collection.

Drowning in Gruel by George Singleton. For those who like humorous southern fiction (I do) you can’t do any better than this collection of stories about a cast of characters living in the small town of Gruel,South Carolina.

I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek. These stories revolve around Perry Katzek, a young Polish-American growing up in Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. As Dybek fans know, he is a master of the short story form.

As you can see, there’s a wide range of what is considered a linked collection. Some seem to be more novelistic, redefining and playing with conventions for novels and short story collections. Others are more solidly in the short story genre, linked mostly by theme or place with some recurring characters.

I have my own catching up to do. Here’s my own to-read of linked collections (recommended in an email conversation by Kevin Wilson, whose novel The Family Fang recently came out from Ecco):

Vida by Patricia Engel

Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s

Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

If any of you have read any of these books from either list or have others to recommend, I’d love to hear from you.

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Sybil Baker is the author of Talismans (a linked collection) and The Life Plan (a novel). Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including most recently Prime Number, Prairie Schooner, and the Journal for Compressed Arts. She received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. After living in South Korea for twelve years, she now lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she is an Assistant Professor of English. She also teaches in the City University of Hong Kong’s low-residency MFA program. Her novel Into This World will be published by Engine Books in 2012.

Tagged as: linked story collection, novel in stories, Sybil Baker, Talismans