Short Stories Are Underrated and are Better than Novels for Reading Groups

And a Recommended Recent Short Story: “Hello, Goodbye,” by Yiyun Li

All great works of fiction share this in common: multiple readings enhance the reader’s experience. To warrant a re-reading, a short story, just like a novel, has to create a world.

In a novel, a world can be created at the author’s leisure. Not so in a short story, where we need to be plunged into the story’s world right away. Here’s an example from a short story master­–– John Cheever’s opening in “Goodbye, My Brother.”

“We are a family that has always been very close in spirit. Our father was drowned in a sailing accident when we were young, and our mother has always stressed the fact that our familial relationships have a kind of permanence that we will never meet with again. I don’t think about the family much, but when I remember its members and the coast where they lived and the sea salt that I think is in our blood, I am happy to recall that I am a Pommeroy—that I have the nose, the coloring, and the promise of longevity—and that while we are not a distinguished family, we enjoy the illusion, when we are together, that the Pommeroys are unique.”

Themes and characters that might absorb oceans of words in a novel have to come across in a short story with equal vitality but with far fewer words. Even more than the writer of a novel, a writer of a short story must be a ruthless dictator in eliminating anything unnecessary or digressive.  

Reading as a Group Activity

If you read the same piece of fiction years or decades apart, you’ll likely have widely different reactions, which can serve as a sort of palimpsest of your life’s journey.

I think what’s even better, however, is to share reactions in real time with people of different backgrounds and experience.

I have never gotten more out of fiction than when I discuss it with fellow readers. There’s a thrill in hearing someone else confirm your own thoughts (“She and I are brilliant!”), but it’s even better to hear an insight that hadn’t occurred to you and which often propels you to a new insight of your own.

Another advantage is the creation of a community based on something exterior. The story is “owned” with perfect equality by each member of the group. I’ve found that this feeling of equality, combined with the way that great fiction acts as a mirror, can create a closeness and a comfort that encourages people to share thoughts that are both personal and compelling.

In fact, a successful reading group is highly therapeutic as a respite from our day to day concerns and the real world. And a way to form deep intellectual relationships.

Over the past few years, we’ve all become familiar and comfortable with the use of Zoom. For reading groups, the benefit of Zoom is that you can have an intimate discussion with a dozen or more people (but no more than a single screen can hold!) in disparate locations. It’s a highly efficient way of gathering people and works well as long as everyone commits their full attention. No multi-tasking.

Novels vs. Short Stories in A Reading Group

I have participated in and moderated discussion groups of both novels and short stories. The length of novels presents a challenge. Not everyone will finish, and it’s certainly beyond the realm of realism to ask group members to read a novel more than once. As well, the breadth of a novel makes it very difficult to choose what to focus on. Any great novel will have so many key passages that the choice of which ones to apply “close reading” to can become impossible.

Short stories, on the other hand, can be read multiple times in preparation for a group meeting. A 5,000 word story will take no more than 30-45 minutes to read, and if it’s a finely wrought story, each successive reading can become even more rewarding.

An Example and a Recommendation

I recently co-moderated a series of four short story discussions. Each story was terrific. (1)  Our last story was “Hello, Goodbye” by Yiyun Li, published this past November in The New Yorker. It was the first piece of fiction I’ve read that handled the setting of the pandemic with great finesse.

There were about 18 of us, and we were a diverse group in every way. Our ages ranged from early 20s to 70s. We had members across time zones stretching from California to Poland and many places in between.

The brilliance of “Hello, Goodbye” blossomed for all of us after multiple readings and then flowered even further after our ninety minute discussion. Below is an example of a few sentences that we could have discussed all night regarding Nina, one of the story’s main protagonists:

“Why now? Don’t you want to wait until the pandemic is over?” Nina said. It was a refrain for

her at the moment. Anything that required her attention, anything that demanded a decision, she moved to an indeterminate future time when she would no longer have an irrefutable excuse.”

During our group conversation, the fictional Nina became as real a person to us as anyone we knew. Some of us supported her kick-the-can-down-the-road approach; others bemoaned her surrender of her agency; others defended Nina based on her backstory given by Yiyun Li in quick, vibrant slashes.

I recommend this story and, more importantly, I recommend trying a reading group around any short story possessing artistry and depth.  

(1)   The other stories we read together were “Story” by Amy Bloom; “A Loaf of Bread” by James Alan McPherson; and “Good Old Neon” by David Foster Wallace. We assembled as a group under the aegis of the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.