Will Readers Be Down With Zadie Smith’s B.O.O.P.?

Short stories have a long history of being overshadowed by the brawnier, sexier novel. “My first short story is being published in XYZ Magazine” doesn’t really hold the same cachet as, “My first novel’s being published.” And short story collections rarely make the best-seller list, even when they garner the same amount of critical praise as, say, the latest Michael Chabon.

All of this is a shame, both for the neglected writers and for anyone jonesing for something a little different. In the 15 minutes between classes that you fritter away wading glassy-eyed through your inbox, you could be perusing two or three stories from The Book of Other People, an anthology edited by Zadie Smith and released in January. The shortest of these is a concise three-and-a-half pages.

Unfortunately, while reading The Book of Other People is guaranteed to prove way more gratifying than systematically deleting your Facebook notifications, the modest length of its stories turns out to be a symptom of some larger problems with the collection. Smith writes in the introduction that the purpose of bringing together selections from this impressive roster of writers—including Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Heidi Julavits, among others—was to generate “a lively demonstration of the fact that there are as many ways to create ‘character’ (or deny the possibility of ‘character’) as there are writers.” The trouble is that many of the stories feel more like character sketches for, well, a novel, rather than fully realized characters and narratives.

At its best, the short story is a self-contained world—necessarily compact, so that every sentence, more so than in a novel, is vital. Short stories frequently provoke, not necessarily in a sensational way but because their brevity concentrates the force of their impact. Think, for example, of Flannery O’Connor’s grotesque black comedies, Beckett’s caustic subtle wit, or Borges’ metaphysical experiments. In contrast, too many of the stories in Smith’s anthology feel like the result of writing workshop exercises.

Most of them are entertaining enough, but some aren’t that memorable. Many of the pieces are a little too predictable. By the same token, if it seems like you’ve literally already read some of them, a glance at the inset page reveals that 10 of the 23 were previously published either in the New Yorker or the Guardian. It’s hard not to feel rebellious by the time that old standby, the Upper East Side socialite satire, comes along. In The Book of Other People’s version, which takes place on a private jet, the author all but crows, ”Get it?” after self-consciously clever conversations like:
“‘Women kiss better than men—it’s a fact.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Because one night Wallis (the weird woman who has a man’s last name for her first name) Wallingford planted one right on me.’”

This is not to say that there aren’t any worthwhile reasons to pick up Smith’s book—especially if you don’t subscribe to the New Yorker. Jonathan Lethem’s “Perkus Tooth” manages to be eccentric and funny without feeling too affected. It evokes a grimy, glamorous Manhattan which many will recognize as the idealized New York they’re still looking for. Hari Kunzru’s “Magda Mandela” is hilarious if glib, and Magda herself, while not quite three-dimensional, fulfills the book’s mission statement in the best possible way. Unsurprisingly, Edwidge Danticat’s contribution—about a man, his pregnant sister, and the husband she is thinking of leaving—is elegant and complicated, one of the few stories that feels complete. And Coim Tóibín’s “Donal Webster” slowly reveals the heart of the title character through a one-sided phone conversation with a long-lost lover. It’s subtly troubling and a welcome deviation from straightforward narrative.

It seems like something of a missed opportunity to have a writer as popular and influential as Smith edit such a mixed bag of stories—some recycled works, some that are half-baked, and only a few revelations—in a habitually overlooked genre. But if that famous name sells a few thousand extra copies, in the best of all possible worlds, some publishing house might be inspired to give those short story writers a shot at more than just a few pages tucked away in an anthology or magazine.