Melville House Books

“. . . in the past few years a good number of writers have started exploring the previously blank territory that lies between the collection of short stories and the novel proper” to the point where “it might just be an example of a new literary genre,” says Philip Hensher. In a commentary for The Daily Telegraph, he notes numerous books that fit the definition: Tim Winton‘s The Turning, Rachel Seiffert‘s The Dark Room, Ali Smith‘s Hotel World, David Mitchell‘s Cloud Atlas, and Rachel Cusk‘s The Lucky Ones. But, asks Hensher, “where does this new form come from? A cynical commentator would say that it’s just a case of the pressures of the market,” such as the fact that “publishers are notoriously reluctant to bring out volumes of short stories.” However, he notes, “New forms arise when our lives seem to demand them. Old-style Stalinist critics used to argue that the novel itself arose in England in tandem with capitalism. The old forms of epic and verse drama just couldn’t contain the intricate details of market, capital, income and exchange . . . . So what has changed to give birth to this new form? In part, it’s the global way we now live . . . . If imperialism itself was an 18th-century idea of unity, which might plausibly be put into a realistic novel, the end of it could only be one of severance and lack of connection.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.