Similar Short Story Author to Chuck?
Okay, not like anyone can really compare.
But i have to write a research paper on a short story author.
I've been "googling" forever, to find one that interests me.
Its not working out well.
Anyone have any recommendations for a REALLY good short story author?
Obvioulsy i like Chucks style the best, but i'll take anything.
Thanks so much.!
David Sedaris is good too. Nothing like Chuck, but pretty humorous, and his observations are pretty accurate.
Denis Johnson or Amy Hempel.
not really comparable to chuck. As in, hempel and johnson are much better at the art of the short story. Great stuff though.
Really, really good short story writers - David Foster Wallace (read the last interview in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men or his Incarnations of Burned Children on Esquire for Chuck style nasitness with a serious, heartfelt, and literary, angle) and George Saunders.
Donald Ray Pollock - lower class misery stories.
Shirley Jackson - very subtle horror stories, read The Lottery.
Kafka - read anything and everything.
JG Ballard - great avant garde science fiction.
And yeah, Kurt Vonnegut.
Nice list, RichardLemmer.
BeautyInnAshes:
For Vonnegut, just grab "Welcome to the Monkey House." Lots of great short stories. Not all the stories are edgy or nasty, but they have a lot of social relevance.
skip kafka. sorry buddy. there are more fun ways to read about daddy issues.
bleed into me -- stephen graham jones
drift and swerve -- jess walters (not a real collection, but the book was written around several short stories the author wrote for a compilation, discarded, and then made into a novel)
i think also a while back the cult interviewed a guy named jeremy johnson who wrote a book of stories called something like angel dust apocalypse
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
Dennis Cooper's "Ugly Man". Dark, edgy short stories.
Bukowski's "Run With The Hunted"
Neither are like Chuck, but are very worthwhile.
not really comparable to chuck. As in, hempel and johnson are much better at the art of the short story. Great stuff though.
I mention them because they're Chuck's biggest influences, which, by nature, would be cause for comparison.
Larry Brown's another great writer and a huge influence on Mr Palahniuk.
I went to a David Sedaris reading in Dublin two years ago hes freakin awesome. What a funny little gay dude and boy did he have some great jokes about Sarah Palin.
not really comparable to chuck. As in, hempel and johnson are much better at the art of the short story. Great stuff though.
I mention them because they're Chuck's biggest influences, which, by nature, would be cause for comparison.
Larry Brown's another great writer and a huge influence on Mr Palahniuk.
Larry Brown FTW! I have his books Joe and Fay on my favourite books shelf.
Here's one who hasn't been suggested yet. Rick Moody. Check out his collection Demonology.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Ah!Thank you all sooooo much. Real big help.
Yeah - my favorite short story book (and I'm afraid it's cliche to say around here) is Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. I've read it quite a few times.
Also The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis.
I second Shirley Jackson. I love her stories as well.
And Atomos - We had Jeremy Robert Johnson lead a Book Club discussion on Angel Dust Apocalypse a long time ago. Good memory friend. That was quite an interesting book. Chuck blurbed it, "A dazzling writer. Seriously amazing short stories- and I love short stories. Like the best of Tobias Wolff. While I read them, they made time stand still. That's great."
Not quite like Chuck - but I absolutely love his writing - Raymond Carver is a must read.
That's like saying Faulkner only wrote about race issues, or that Dostoevsky only wrote about murderers.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
DON'T skip Kafka!
"A Hunger Artist" is my favorite short story.
"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested."
"Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet"
this is not a short story at all, but it's very cult friendly writing: WORLD LEADER PRETEND by james bernard frost. hey pete, i vote we book club this one.
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
That is - if I'm ever able to get the book club going again... lol
"A Hunger Artist" is my favorite short story.
Amen to that. "A Hunger Artist" is absolutely unforgettable.
I think Hemingway was one of the best short story authors I've ever come across, maybe the best. "A Clean, Well Lit Place" is the best short story I've ever read.
Just thought i should let you guys know, I decided on Vonnegut. His stuff is actually pretty good and my paper is going well!
Thanks again everyone.!
I really liked Johnson and Hempel too by the way:)
If you get bored of Vonnegut, "Autofac" by Philip K. Dick is excellent.
I know I'm late, but some of the stories in Craig Davidson's Rust & Bone compare very favorably to Mr. Palahniuk. Give it a shot once you're done with the paper.
And good luck!
I like a lot of Arthur C. Clarke's stories. They're not like Chuck's at all. I just like sci-fi stories.
"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." -Carl Sagan
"Am I cruel? Probably. Is she an idiot? Yes." -jane s.
bleed into me -- stephen graham jones
drift and swerve -- jess walters (not a real collection, but the book was written around several short stories the author wrote for a compilation, discarded, and then made into a novel)
i think also a while back the cult interviewed a guy named jeremy johnson who wrote a book of stories called something like angel dust apocalypse
oh god. i read angel dust appocalypse coz i got his book coz he did an intervieww on the site.
it was bad. i saw that eraserhead press published it and i still bought it.
eraserhead press has the worst books i have read. they give fake ratings on amazon basically they always say it is like BEE, chuck, david cronenberg and david lynch all rolled up into a joint being smoked by Leonardo va vinci at a Pink Floyd concert.
ok i am too high.
Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote some great ones.
Stu