L. Rust Hills (1924–2008)

This book is like a tactical nuke: small, dense, and explosive. Rush Hills was a literary editor of the old school, in charge of fiction at Esquire in the days when you could say with a straight face that you read it for the articles. In WIGSSIP he explains what the literary short story is, how it differs from the sketch or 'slick fiction', and how to go about writing one yourself. This isn't a manual, more of a mediation on that most elusive and evocative of forms, the literary short story, show more but the ideas of coherence, moving characters, and a crisis point are vital ways for an aspiring author to rise above the traps of the mundane.

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Updated for 2017: I return to WIGSSIP whenever I'm having trouble with my own fiction. This time around, the advice centered on character, and your character's roundedness and capacity for change. I think Hills is right. Get the character right, and the rest will flow naturally. show less

I once worked with a group of software engineers who were so fussy, they would wall off their office windows with silver foil. This is the book I turned to as I tried to 'be one' with my co-workers. It didn't make my office group more lovable, but it did make me laugh enough to appreciate their, uhm, fussiness.

This book was published in the early 1970s, so there are chapters on ashtrays, smoking, drinking, and fixing those old TV sets. Still, it's a good laugh. My favorite was the show more Dyscohesion of Companionable Groups. This is the syndrome where children become upset (like software engineers) when they end up sitting next to or riding with people that aren't fun. This is explained as one of LIFE'S CRUEL TRUTHS. The fun people are never next to you.

And that's how I handled my engineer team.

Book Season = Year Round (when the geeks read) show less

I worked for Mr. Hills here in Key West in his last year and spent a fair amount of time kicking myself for not reading his book until after he died. I think he would have been amused by my enthusiasm for his book. I loved his final idea for how to fix the world, i.e. dismantle everything and recreate the past till we get the country back to "The Good Old Days"!!! He goes into such practical detail about this scheme, I found myself thinking that this is totally realistic. Anyway, I thought show more the book was hilarious, but then, I'm extremely fussy myself!! I came to admire him and the way he lived a great deal. Simply, eleagantly, surrounded by books and doing his impossibly complicated jig-saw puzzles. show less

Really - is there any way to go wrong when your list of authors includes the likes of Truman Capote, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Norman Mailer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Flannery O’Connor, John Updike, Gabrial Garcia Marquez, and Ray Bradbury? (That is just part of the 24 authors included.) I suppose there is. For example, it could be one of those collections we were all forced to read in college where “great literature” was gathered to make us show more all smarter. But such is not the case here. This is a collection culled from Esquire magazine by people who apparently love the short story and are not trying to prove any point but that it is a joy to read good stories.

Of course there are low points – stories that didn’t work for me. But the overall quality of this collection is so high that the points seem low only by comparison, and, even if a story didn’t work for me, I could still the craft and quality inherent in the story.

Because the stories come from Esquire, it does not necessarily include the authors’ best stories. Sure, there is “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and other stories you may recognize. But there are just as many new delights in the collection as you will find anywhere. My thought was to list some of the new surprises, but it is just too much. This is an overall strong collection which is perfect for someone just learning about the short story or for the seasoned veteran. show less