To Make a Long Story Short...

One of the ripple effects of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Alice Munro is the discovery of the short story.

Suddenly people are writing about the art of the short story as though until now, no one had been aware of it. But there always have been great short story writers. Among other Nobel laureates, there are Hemingway, Faulkner and Kipling. Hemingway's best work may be in his short stories ("The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and scores more). Faulkner wrote many short stories, including "The Bear" and "Barn Burning." And John Huston thought Kipling's "The Man Who Would be King" the best story ever written.

The New Yorker was for decades home to three of the best short story writers, all named John: O'Hara, Cheever and Updike. And then there was Thurber, whose classic "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is about to be filmed again, this time with Sean Penn, which is very promising indeed.

Add to the list Ellen Gilchrist, whose short story collections include "Drunk with Love" and "In the Land of Dreamy Dreams," Irwin Shaw ("The Girls in their Summer Dresses," "The 80-Yard Run," "Tip On a Dead Jockey") Deborah Eisenberg, and W.R. Burnett, whose "Dressing Up" should be a movie, and almost was, by film maker Phil Surguy.

And how about Ring Lardner, Dorothy Parker and Salinger?

Now that the short story has been discovered (ironically, at a time when the market for short stories has almost disappeared) there may be hope for the novella and the essay.

Keeping our 2/HB pencils crossed.