Amy Hempel’s stories require your collaboration.
The Going-Away Party
“Drink up,” the man said to his daughter. “I don’t want to,” the girl said. “You need to understand how this feels,” said the man.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Collected Stories” by Raymond Carver
The tortured collaboration between Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish produced a masterpiece in American short fiction.
DIY MFA Reading List: “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
Truth is stranger than fiction in Tim O’Brien’s brilliant meditation on the Vietnam War.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” dares us to open our eyes.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Suttree” by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy’s tragicomic “Suttree” is fueled not by a love of life, but an obsession with the certainty of death.
DIY MFA Reading List: “T.C. Boyle Stories”
T.C. Boyle’s Collected “Stories” Poke Fun at Love, Death … and Everything in Between
DIY MFA Reading List: “Collected Stories and Other Writings” by John Cheever
Cheever channels Kafka and Fitzgerald in his “Collected Stories and Other Writings”.
DIY MFA Reading List: “Middlemarch” by George Eliot
a Satire on the Current U.S. Economic and Political Debate
DIY MFA Reading List: “2666″ by Roberto Bolaño
Roberto Bolaño explores the intersections of art, power, and murder in his disturbing masterpiece “2666″.