DUers, I need your help in finishing the design of my short story course for seniors.

[CTyankee]

It's called "American Short Stories of the Late 20th Century." It's a 6 week course. At present I have 4 authors: Cheever, Salinger, Updike and Proulx (I am doing this chronologically).

Could you help me by suggesting 2 other writers of this period? Also the story of each author you like best.

My course subtitle will probably be: A Social Perspective.

Thanks, folks!

[RainDog]

1. Flannery O'Connor should surely be on that list

Also - Tillie Olson was far more important than Proulx is now.

[tomg]

4. O'Connor was the first one who

came to my mind also - "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

[RainDog]

2. also - Raymond Carver was the master of the short story in the 1980s

You should get rid of Updike and instead use Carver - Cathedral, for instance.

I mean, if you want to talk about the American short story - how can you leave out Carver?

[CTyankee]

16. I know, I'm pretty limiting since all these authors published in The New Yorker.

But I DO live in the Northeast and most of my classes will be made up of people who have lived in the Northeast (a lot in NYC). So it's probably OK that I am doing it this way...

[cliffordu]

3. Nevermind, wrong nationality.

[likesmountains 52]

5. I read a collection of short stories by Mae Briskin (maybe 10 years ago)

in a book titled A Boy Like Astrid's Mother. I lost the book when the storage shed roof leaked, but I recall wanting to hang on to the book b/c it was good writing. Just an offbeat suggestion!

[RainDog]

6. also - Stuart Dybek - Pet Milk... but

actually, there are so many it would be hard to limit.

Lorrie Moore. Jayne Anne Phillips.

What about some post-modernists - Robert Coover.

It seems to me if you want to cover the late 20th c.

you have the Eastern elite - Cheever or Updike or Salinger - they're all really writing about the same milieu so they're over-represented.

You have the realists - Carver, Moore.

You have southern gothic or "gothic,"- but O'Connor was so important in her time... Oates also fits into that category. Shirley Jackson.

You have post-modernists - Coover, Gaddis, Bartheleme.

You have the blue collar/urban like Dybek or Tillie Olson.

African-American voices - Alice Walker is probably the best known.

[CTyankee]

13. I thought about Barthelme but he was a little strange...

however, worth considering...

Alice Walker is probably a good bet. My course is Social Perspectives after all...

[hyphenate]

7. Margaret Atwood?

Stephen King?

Any of the Beat group--Brautigan, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Thompson? I used to read a lot more of them just after school, but I'm afraid I don't recall much now.

Kurt Vonnegut?



My own personal likes don't always fall with general fiction, as I prefer much older authors, like M.R. James, who I can devour in large spans of time. Or science fiction or fantasy. I only know that each of these above authors in some major way made an impact on society and literature and should be included with the others.

[RainDog]

9. Atwood is Canadian n/t

[slackmaster]

18. Canada is in North America

:hi:

P.S. - Fifty-four forty or fight.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Donald Barthelme

The Indian Uprising

[Sal Minella]

10. "Our Work And Why We Do It" by Donald Barthelme

I read this in The New Yorker many years ago and found it unforgettable.

[July]

11. I enjoyed Updike's "Museums and Women" (book of short stories).

I read it so long ago, though, that no particular story title comes to mind.

[Vincardog]

12. “The Day the Dam Broke,” by James Thurber.

[CTyankee]

15. I LOVED Thurber when I was a kid...but that was a LONG time ago.

I don't think Thurber fits the mold here...

[NV Whino]

14. Joyce Carol Oates

Probably the most prolific and varied writer of our time. Almost anything would do.

She did a book of short-shorts about 5 years ago. I didn't care for them myself, but it would be a good inclusion just for technique.

[PSzymeczek]

17. Katherine Ann Porter

and Tobias Wolff are two postwar short story writers.