Neglected Gems ... Grace PALEY

GRACE PALEY is one of America’s most accomplished writers of short stories. Her eccentric, noisy characters and rich use of language leave you astounded. Paley once tried writing a novel but failed to write one. She found the novel pedestrian. She finds the idea of plot difficult. But she excelled at the short story. In her story, “A Conversation with My Father” (1974), the narrator argues against “plot, the absolute line between two points which I’ve always despised. Not for literary reasons, but because it takes all hope away. Everyone, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life.”

Bibliography
PALEY Grace [1922-] Short-story writer, poet. Born Grace Gutzeit (Goodside) in the Bronx, New York, New York, U.S. Stories The Collected Stories (1994: shortlisted for the 1994 National Book Award for Fiction and the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction); Long Walks and Intimate Talks (with illustrations by Vera B. Williams) (1991); Later the Same Day (1985); Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974: winner of the National Book Award for Fiction); The Little Disturbances of Man: Stories of Women and Men at Love (1959) Poetry Begin Again: Collected Poems (2000); New and Collected Poems (1992); Leaning Forward (1985); Goldenrod (1982); 16 Broadsides (1980) Nonfiction 365 Reasons Not to Have Another War (1989) Essays Just As I Thought (1998)

Recommended
Stories The Collected Stories (1994); Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974)