Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story

by Lorin Stein

  It was a Thursday when I lifted the phone and called him. I said, “Gabe, I’m going to be sixty-six tomorrow, Friday, January 13, 1978, and I’ve been writing fiction all my life and no one’s ever published a word of it and I’d give my left pinkie to get into The Paris Review.” And I did because Gabriel was interested at once and told me he’d get in touch with me the next day because he thought he might find a buyer. He did. The next day Gabe came around and said he had a friend, Tom Reid, whose ancestor was killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547 and who needed to get his self-respect back. According to Gabriel, Tom had agreed to see to it that my story, “Livid With Age,” would be published in The Paris Review for my left pinkie. And he did. He told me to type my story, double-spaced, on clean white paper. Not to use eraseable paper. He said I should make my setting exact in place and time, not to moralize at the end of my story and to get rid of the false intensifiers like “literally,” “really,” “utterly,” “just,” “veritable,” “absolutely,” “very” and “basically.” Create emphasis by syntax, he said. He also told me to clean the sweat stains off. I did all that and when my story came out, I went to Dr. Dodypol and had the finger removed surgically and under anesthesia. His head nurse, Kate Crackernuts, wrapped the finger in cotton bandages and in red tissue paper with a yellow ribbon around it and I walked out a published author and weighing three ounces less than when I walked in. And made money on it too, because the operation cost fifty dollars and I was paid sixty for my story.

  A month after the appearance of “Livid With Age,” I sent another story out, “Liam Sexob Lives in Loveland,” to TriQuarterly. It seemed like it came back the same day, although of course it didn’t, and I knew that I needed Gabriel Ratchet again and his influence. I found him sitting in the Trywtyn Tratyn Pub, drinking Habitrot and flirting with Jenny Greenteeth. “Look, Gabe,” I said, “I need help. I’d give my left testicle to my story in TriQuarterly.” Gabe didn’t even look at me when he said, “Make it two and I think I can get you a deal.” I allowed as how I’d probably go along with it and he said he’d talk to Marmaduke Langdale, who needed them for his Whitsun Rejoicings. Gabe did and I did. Dr. Nepier from Lydford in Bercks and his head nurse, Sarah Skelbourn, removed them on a cold Friday in December of 1978. Sarah wrapped them in white bandages, green tissue paper and red ribbons. I took them to Gabriel, who was satisfied with the merchandise and told me that Marmaduke Langdale said I should change the title of the story to “Silence on the Rive Gauche,” change the name of the main character Liam Sexob to Burd Isobel, eliminate the doublings, get rid of the colloquial style, erase the tear stains from the margins of pages 4, 14 and 22, and stop using exclamation points, dashes, underlinings for emphasis and the series of periods that indicate ellipses. I did all that. Retyped the story on good, twenty pound linen bound and sent it off to TriQuarterly. They accepted it within a week and I was on my way to my second story in print.

  When “Silence on the Rive Gauche” came out, I asked Gabriel Ratchet to be my permanent agent. He agreed and in July of 1979 Dr. Louis Marie Sinistrari and his colleague, Isidore Liseaux, removed my left hand which I figured I didn’t need anyway because I can only type with my right hand and right arm, wrapped it in blue and red striped gift paper, tied it with black ribbon, and sent it to Mr. Greatorex, the Irish Stroker, who wrote back from the Island of Hy Brasil, MD., that I should stop using participial phrases, get the inactive detail out of my descriptions, stop using literary language with its euphemisms and circumlocutions and not to use exclamations such as “needless to say,” “to my amazement” and “I don’t have to tell you.” He also suggested that I not send in pages with blood stains on them. I did everything he said and Esquire accepted my story, “Moles’ Brains and the Right to Life.”

  Even though I was still anemic from my last publication, I decided in January of 1980 to bid for the New Yorker. Gabe sent out the message and Durant Hotham wrote from Yatton Keynel, ME., that he would do it for a pair of ears if I would promise to stop using abnormal word order, get rid of the faux-naif narrator, eliminate all cliches from my narrative, would isolate point of view in one character or one narrator and would clean my snot off the manuscript. I did what he said and sent in the manuscript of “Muckelawee.” Durant wrote back his thanks for the contract and told me to visit Peg Powler at 1369 Kelpie Street and she would have some directions for me. I went. She had directions and told me to go to Dr. Arviragus at the Abbey Lubbers Clinic. I went. When I walked out of the Clinic, I had my ears in a red and gold bag tied at the top with green ribbon. The stumps on the sides of my head tingled in the cold air as I walked out into a new reputation as one of the finest short story writers in America.

  When I suggested a book of short stories to Gabriel, he shivered. He suggested that I rest for a while and get myself together before I made any more deals. I told him he’d made a lot of money off my publications and that he would make a lot more. Just to do his work as my agent and let me worry about the parts. He did admit that he had an offer. That he needed a left arm, even if there was no hand attached to it. A Dr. William Drage of Hitchin, AR., needed it to fit out Margaret Barrance so that she could attend a ball because not having a left arm there was nothing for her to lay across the shoulder of her male partner while she danced. Gabriel told me that I would have to go to Hitchin for the transplant. I agreed and I did in March of 1981. But before he removed the left arm, he told me that the deal was contingent on my editing my manuscript carefully, to carefully control the secondary patterns, to make the deuteragonist more important in all the stories, to research materials for the stories, to make the stories more weird, more strange, more uncomfortable for the reader. Clean the ear wax off my pages. I promised I’d do all he told me to do and he took my arm and sewed it onto Margaret, who six months later danced in her first ball at the age of thirty-three, wearing a blue and gold dress with a red sash around her waist, while Doubleday published my collection of short stories, The Cry of Horse and Hattock (September, 1981).

  Because my recovery times were lengthening, I decided that a novel should be my next reduction and when I mentioned it to Gabriel Ratchet he fell on the floor and chortled. I told him to get his little carcass off the floor and get to work. He did. He got bids for my nose, my feet, my legs, my eyes, my penis and my kidneys. I bid one left foot. The law firm of Morgue, Arsile and Maglore handled the negotiations and in February of 1982 Ratchet finalized the contract with Ms. Ruth Tongue of Somorset, KS., by which I agreed to furnish her with one left foot in return for the publication of my novel, Flibberty Gibbet, by Knopf. My part of the contract was that I had to stop misusing “transpire,” “problematical,” “livid,” “momentarily,” “presently,” and “loin.” My sentences were to be made more simple. I was to use more active verbs with agents doing actions. I was to get out the melodrama. I also agreed not to use any anthropomorphizing metaphors, not to personify anything not human, to make only direct descriptions of characters, objects and actions and not to leak urine on my manuscript. Gabriel also negotiated an interesting addendum to the contract and that was that if the book could be made to win a national prize then my part of the bargain was the left foot and the whole left leg. Wouldn’t you know; Ms. Tongue got the whole leg when Flibberty Gibbet, clad in a dust jacket of red, black and orange, won the National Book Award for 1982. They carried me up to the podium in a rocking chair and I shook hands for the last time when I accepted the award.

  Rachet’s account books, which he read to me before I left O’Hare, read as follows after that:

  April 4, 1983: Right foot. To Tommy Rawhead of Asmoday, ND. Complicate the emotional and psychological dimensions of the action. Careful selection of names. Vary sentence rhythms. Tonal variation. Shit off pages. Novel: Brachiano’s Ghost. Macmillian. Black and grey cover. Red chapter headings. Plus right leg: Pulitzer Prize. Done.

  July 16, 1984: Right hand. To Elaby Gathen of Hackpen, MI. Correct spelling of “existence,” “separate” and “pu
rsue.” No redundancy in nouns and verbs in their modifiers. Play games with readers. No slobbering on pages. Book of short stories: The Blue Hag of Winter. Random House. Gold on black cover. Red title page. Right arm also: O’Henry Award, St. Lawrence Award for Fiction and Chair at Columbia. Done.

  February 10, 1985: Two eyes. To Billy Blind of Systern, DE. No use of “etc.,” the suffix “-wise,” correct use of “as.” No rhetorical questions in narrative. No openings with dialogue. No flashbacks. Include all senses in descriptions. No pus on pages. Two volume novel: Sammael. Little, Brown. Red, green and blue cover. Nobel Prize. Done.

  As I float over the shadowed northern world, I think now that we all go off into darknesses, bit by bit, piece by piece, part by part. We all disintegrate into our words, our sentences, our paragraphs, our narratives. We scatter our lives into photographs, letters, certificates, books, prizes, lies. We ride out the light until the records break one by one. We sit out the days until the sun gets dimmer and dimmer. We lie about in the gathering shadows until North America, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Asia, Africa and Europe lie about on the dark waters of our globe. It is crack time in the world of flesh. It is shatter time in the world of limbs. It is splatter time in the world of bones. It is the last splinter of the word. I have tasted the double-deal. I have smelled the sleight-of-hand. I have heard the cryptic whisper. I have felt the cold riddle. Because no one stands apart from his stone. No one laughs apart from his crust. No one breathes apart from his shriveling. No one speaks apart from his silence. To lie down in a wicker basket is not to lie apart. To be turned on soft, pus-soaked sheets is not to be turned alone. To be fed through tubes is not to eat alone. To drink and choke is to spit up for all. To float through the night is the journey we all take sooner or later until the bright and shining morning star breaks and there is no more.

  I can feel the huge plane starting to descend. My seventy-four year old ears are popping. The stewardess who smells like a dead dog has already rolled me over so that I won’t aspirate if I vomit. She’s strapped me tightly in place on my two seats. I can feel the safety belts across my rump and ribs. I feel the descent into darkness and I know that I have not given up anything that I could not do without. I know that you can live with less than you came in with. I know that wholeness is not everything and that if you will give an eye for a prize you’ll be a sure winner. I can feel my long, white hair sliding and shaking over my stumpy ears as the plane bucks and banks for the landing. I can imagine the attendants in black knickers with the little black bows by the knees who will carry me onto the clapping stage. I can imagine the old black king squinting through his thick glasses down into the wicker basket with the two handles and the white Cannon sheets. As my snot begins to leak out over my upper lip, I can hear myself asking him to clean the ear wax out of my shallow ears so that I can hear him clearly when he extols the virtues of long-suffering, when he prattles about how some people overcome severe handicaps and go on to greatness, when he maunders about the indomitable will of the human spirit, while the old black queen gurgles and snickers down at the heady, winning lump. And I hope it’s a prince, princess or princeling who will hold the microphone down into the basket so that while pus oozes from my eye sockets I can whisper my acceptance speech. I hope I can control my saliva. I hope I don’t shed tears. I wonder if there will be flowers to add their smells to the noises, the tastes and the temperatures. I wonder if anyone will manage to get a sip of Champagne to me. That thumping, bumping and bouncing must be the runway.

  Issue 73, 1978

  Contributors

  DANIEL ALARCÓN hails from Peru, but now lives in Oakland, California. He is the author of the story collection War by Candlelight, winner of 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award, and the internationally acclaimed novel Lost City Radio.

  DONALD BARTHELME was the author of over one hundred short stories, and four novels, including The King. A cofounder of Fiction, he served as the director of PEN, as well as the Authors Guild. He died in 1989.

  ANN BEATTIE is the award-winning author of numerous novels, short story collections, and a novella, Walks with Men.

  DAVID BEZMOZGIS is a filmmaker and fiction writer. In 2010, he was named to The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” list. He is the author of the award-winning collection Natasha: And Other Stories, and a novel, The Free World.

  JORGE LUIS BORGES was an Argentinean writer, translator, and poet. He is the author of several short story collections, including Ficciones and The Aleph and Other Stories. He died in 1986.

  JANE BOWLES was the author of Two Serious Ladies and a play, In the Summer House. She died in 1973.

  ETHAN CANIN is a writer and physician. He is the author of four novels and two short story collections, including The Palace Thief, and teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

  RAYMOND CARVER was the author of numerous poems and short story collections, including Cathedral. He died in 1988.

  EVAN S. CONNELL is the author of several poems, short stories, and novels, including A Long Desire. His bestselling biography of George Custer, Son of the Morning Star, was adapted into an Emmy-winning miniseries, and in 2009 he was a finalist for The Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement.

  BERNARD COOPER is the author of a collection of essays, Maps to Anywhere; a memoir, Truth Serum; an autobiographical novel, A Year of Rhymes; and the short story collection Guess Again. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, he currently teaches writing at Bennington College.

  GUY DAVENPORT was a writer of fictional miniatures and essays, as well as a translator, a teacher, and an artist. He died in 2005.

  LYDIA DAVIS is a critically acclaimed translator and fiction writer. Her short story collection Varieties of Disturbance was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award, and in 2005, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

  DAVE EGGERS is the bestselling author of Zeitoun and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. His novel What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng was a 2006 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and he is the founder of McSweeney’s and The Believer.

  JEFFREY EUGENIDES is the author of several short stories and novels, including Middlesex, winner the Pulitzer Prize in 2003, and The Marriage Plot.

  MARY GAITSKILL is the author of five works of fiction, including Veronica (a 2005 finalist for the National Book Award), Two Girls Fat and Thin, and the short story collection Bad Behavior. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and teaches creative writing at Syracuse University.

  THOMAS GLYNN is the author of several novels, including Watching the Body Burn. His most recent work is Hammer. Nail. Wood.

  ALEKSANDAR HEMON is the author of three short story collections and The Lazarus Project, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Foundation grant.

  AMY HEMPEL is a journalist and the author of several short story collections, including Reason to Live. Her most recent work is The Collected Stories, a compilation of her stories from 1985 to 2005.

  MARY-BETH HUGHES is the author of a novel, Wavemaker II, and a short story collection, Double Happiness.

  DENIS JOHNSON is the author of six novels, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. His novel Tree of Smoke was the 2007 winner of the National Book Award.

  JONATHAN LETHEM is the author of seven novels and two volumes of essays, including The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.

  SAM LIPSYTE, a Guggenheim Fellow, is the author of several novels and a short story collection, Venus Drive: Stories. His most recent novel is The Ask.

  BEN MARCUS is a novelist, short story writer, and critic. He is the former fiction editor of Fence, and the author of the novel The Flame Alphabet.

  DAVID MEANS is the author of the short story collection The Spot, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book for 2010. In addition to The Paris Review, his work has appeared in Esquire, The N
ew Yorker, and Harper’s.

  LEONARD MICHAELS was the author of the short story collection, Going Places, and the novel The Men’s Club, among others. He died in 2003.

  STEVEN MILLHAUSER is the author of several short story collections and novels, including Martin Dressler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1997.

  LORRIE MOORE is the bestselling author of several short story collections, including Birds of America, and three novels. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, and her work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike and Katrina Kenison.

  CRAIG NOVA is the author of one autobiography and twelve novels, including The Good Son, Cruisers, and The Informer. The winner of an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1984, he is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

  DANIEL OROZCO is the award-winning author of Orientation and Other Stories. His stories have been widely anthologized, and he is currently at work on a novel.

  MARY ROBISON is the author of several novels and short story collections, including Tell Me: 30 Stories. She won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2001 for her novel Why Did I Ever. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she currently teaches at the University of Florida.

  NORMAN RUSH is the author of three novels, including Mortals, winner of the National Book Award in 1991. His debut, Whites, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

  JAMES SALTER is the author of numerous screenplays, essays, novels, and short stories, including Dusk and Other Stories, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1989. In 2000, he was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters.

  MONA SIMPSON is the award-winning author of five novels, including Anywhere But Here and, most recently, My Hollywood. She is a former editor of The Paris Review.

  ALI SMITH is the author of numerous plays, novels, and short story collections, including The First Person and Other Stories and, most recently, the novel There But For The. Her work has been twice nominated for The Man Booker Prize and The Orange Prize for Fiction.