one thing and another

Reviewed by Bruce Pratt

31 august 2018 archive

As the editor of American Fiction, a teacher of creative writing, and a devoted reader of short fiction, I have more than once read over a thousand short stories in a year, witnessing the ebb and flow of the form's styles, and trends, while remaining steadfast in the belief that great short fiction must reveal character and gain traction from the start. It also employs a mix of dialogue and conversation, interior monologue, exposition, tension, and expectation to invigorate the narrative from the opening sentence. The vast majority of stories that haven't hooked an editor by page three never will.

Though counter-intuitive in this age of the short attention span, the short story's popularity has ebbed from its peak in the middle of the last century, as evidenced by the paltry number of mainstream magazines that regularly feature them, though the form remains alive in hundreds of literary magazines—most associated with colleges, universities and MFA programs. Because these venues accept a small fraction of their unsolicited submissions, top literary agencies scour them for future clients—using their editors as screeners.

In the words of writer and critic Colin Fleming, this selectivity has led many of these journals and reviews to become "hermetic" in nature, making stories falling outside their editorial preferences difficult to place. Furthermore, book contracts for short story collections are uncommon for writers who have yet to publish a novel with a major house.

As a result, many short fiction authors opt for self-publishing.

Neil D. Isaacs, professor emeritus, University of Maryland, is author or co-author of more than two-dozen books on an impressive variety of topics, from sports to Tolkien, published by respected houses to excellent reviews. His self-published story collection One Thing and Another and Other Stories, however, falls short for several reasons. A hint may lie in the lack of an acknowledgement page listing prior magazine or journal publications and the fact that the collection is dedicated to twelve individuals, "For a proud and loving grandpa to be remembered."

Isaacs often assumes readers are familiar with and interested in the machinations of academia, and contemporary Jewish life. While he is hardly alone in exploring these two cultures, and these stories evince a keen eye for the conventions and specifics of both worlds, he fails to draw his readers along with him in the manner of a master like Roth.

The stories are also plagued by an over reliance on summary exposition causing them to be episodic—reading more like sketches for longer works than self-contained stories. This is because they fail to begin deeply enough into the narrative at a point that captures the reader's attention. Thus, the stories, with the exception of "Elevator," which includes a subtitle homage to Robert Coover, do not gain the immediate traction requisite in successful short fiction. "Elevator" which begins with engaging dialogue, its characters limned by what they say and how they react to what is said to them, along with the story "Collared" are the most successful in the collection, though the latter relies on a coincidence that strains its verisimilitude. (To be fair, the same is true about Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find.")

As well written these two stories may be, they are not enough to sustain a full collection. However, they are more than enough "For a proud and loving grandpa to be remembered."

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