short stories delight

It's not often that I finished reading a book and decided that I want to own a copy myself. Wena Poon's stories and her writing have a sparkle that charms and makes you smile a subtle relish smile that betrays delight.

My friends once remarked that they can't read short stories because they feel somewhat shortchanged or unsatisfied at the end, as compared to reading a novel which has a full, unfolding plot that requires time to ingest.

To that thought, Irene has a sound and genuine response: 'You can't read a short story like you do a novel.' She should know better, for she teaches literature.

"Edward marvelled again at the random connectivity of life, the enormous consequences of tiny blips of electronic mail pulsing, faster than the speed of light, through the wide world. For the past few weeks he had felt, intermittently, the terror of the void. And yet the void had sent him back something: her smell, her flesh. Out of eternity he had redeemed an hour; out of the unknown he had experienced a sudden consummation in which for a few seconds the universe contracted into the smallest possible ball of anguished joy, before expanding again and petering out into nonthingness. The void, consequently, became a little less terrifying. Even as he thought so, he found it impossible to tell her. He had already decided, earlier in the evening, that she had picked him up at random, that he was being used, perhaps even objectified. But now he didn’t mind. He smiled in the darkness. “You know what you are? You are a sex tourist.”"

"“Oh, God.” Buried in her words was a footnote about his love life. But she always stopped right there. She had a light touch with her boys. She believed that if she did not edit their existence, they would grow up sensible."

-The Proper Care of Foxes, Wena Poon