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Books

The secret life of the short story

They’re modest in scale, but can conceal a tendency to megalomania. Reviews of D.J. Taylor’s Wrote For Luck and The Boy Who Could See Death by Salley Vickers

4 April 2015

9:00 AM

4 April 2015

9:00 AM

Wrote For Luck D.J. Taylor

Galley Beggar Press, pp.250, £8.99, ISBN: 9781910296264

The Boy Who Could See Death Sally Vickers

Viking, pp.224, £14.99, ISBN: 9780241187692

The short story likes to play the underdog. Famously unfavoured by publishers, it has none of the commercial clout of the novel. Denying itself the luxury of length, it is a martyr to the cause of shortness. When the short story writer Alice Munro was awarded the 2013 Nobel prize for literature, she seemed to personify the supposed modesty of her craft.

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