I like to read short stories. I wouldn't say I am a terribly well informed reader, but I read WSJ articles when I am at my parents' place, The New Yorker when it is sitting around, creative non-fiction to pass the time, and short fiction as a break from novels.
Collection and series such as Best American are great because they curate my whole experience and take the work out of subscribing to thousands of journals and blogs just to find something decent to read. I get to read across a range of authors and themes. However, as of late, I have a serious bone to pick with the editors of these collections: every story I read is depressing as hell.
Have any of you seen Wendy and Lucy? Imagine a film festival where every entry was like that. How about an endless loop of the last 10 minutes of Nights of Cabiria and The Bicycle Thief? That's what these anthologies seem like: a broken record of hopelessness and heart ripping grief.
I know that some amount of conflict is necessary to drive a story. Obviously a 100% positive narrative would not make a compelling story - but why does every anthologized short story that I read leave me with a pit in my stomach? Lee Gutkind's Becoming a Doctor, a collection of creative nonfiction written by doctors, almost had me crying myself to sleep. Three of the first five entries in The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories made me feel so dejected that I lost my appetite.
In my high school Spanish class, we read a lot of Mexican literature, There too, all the stories followed the same pattern: tragedy besets family (vital livestock/family member dies), youth goes on a journey to better his circumstances, tragedy befalls youth again, tragic end. I wish I could find the book we used so I could quote some of the examples to you, but I recall one story where a cow was killed by a snake, another with a recurring comparison of a man's hands to worms, a long drawn out tale documenting the aftermath of a grand mothers death. There was just no positive message anywhere. In fact, these may be the most terrifyingly depressing stories ever.
Editors - I'm not asking for a cute romantic comedy (I have bittorrent for that) - but would it kill you to include a few chuckle worthy tales in your neatly collected volumes? Can't the guy get the girl every now and then? Does fire/war/pestilence/disease/CANCER have to ruin every narrative? Why even bother foreshadowing or irony when your peer authors have already extinguished any possibility of optimism?
The Bottom Line: Who decided that short stories can't end in anything less than general malaise?
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