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Lead book review

The short story in Britain today: enough to make Conan Doyle weep

A review of Honeydew by the American writer Edith Pearlman suggests that while the short story may be flourishing in the States, its counterpart over here is shamefully neglected

10 January 2015

9:00 AM

10 January 2015

9:00 AM

Honeydew Edith Pearlman

John Murray, pp.280, £16.99

I am not sure if it’s properly understood quite what a crisis the short story is now in. Superficial signs of success and publicity — such as Alice Munro winning the Nobel, or the establishment of another well-funded prize — are widely mistaken for a resurgence. But what has disappeared — and disappeared quite recently — is the wide spread of journals willing to pay for a single story.

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