Megan Giddings Recommends Five Short Story Collections

Novelist Megan Giddings recommends five short story collections that examine broken realities. Her list, featured in Publishers Weekly, highlights books that influenced her own collection, 'Black Arts'.

Giddings, the author of three acclaimed novels, laces the striking and well-crafted stories in 'Black Arts' with horror tropes and speculative elements. She explains her fascination with reality, recalling a television commentator stating that without regulations, humanity would lose 'one its most underrated resources: a shared reality.' This idea clashed with her experiences living in the U.S. She notes that writing about marginalized people often means writing about characters living in a different reality than what the majority might encounter. Her new book, 'Black Arts', is about the ways the many Black women artists in the collection try to capture reality in their works. Do they represent the reality that might sell or the reality they’ve experienced? How do the unhealthy and healthy relationships we have with others make us see the world? Giddings writes fiction mostly in the literary tradition but often uses elements from speculative fiction, surrealism, and horror to force readers to think about reality in a macro way.

The Babysitter at Rest

Giddings first read this collection the fall after she graduated from her MFA program. The title story, 'The Babysitter at Rest,' reignited her desire to write. In it, reality atrophies around the main character. The story examines the ways people infantilize a certain kind of young woman, and how some might infantilize themselves when young and beautiful in an effort to use attention as power. It also features a stunt with cement at a birthday party that goes tragically wrong, killing a roommate and destroying a pool.

Night Beast

Giddings expresses deep love for this collection. She praises author Jen Joffre's talent for showing uncomfortable or problematic situations and making it clear why her characters would want to be in them. Reality distorts in these stories not just from their creative premises, but from the characters’ desires to push and warp the world around them. Giddings also has a personal connection, having worked as an editor on the story 'Softening' before its publication. It was the first story she ever worked on as an editor that ended up in a published collection.

Reconstruction

The second story in this collection is 'They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass.' It is set in a speculative future where Earth is being terrorized by beings called 'The Glassmen.' Giddings says the genius lies in how author K. T. Johnson shows the ways that people’s anxieties about the unknown can create rumors and shape a shared sense of reality. She also calls the character Libby 'devastating' for her efforts to take care of everyone.

Bliss Montage

Giddings highlights the story 'Returning.' She calls it one of the few stories about writers she doesn’t feel embarrassed recommending. In it, a writer describes taking a trip to Eastern Europe with her husband, where he wants her to take part in a strange ritual, and she reflects on her extramarital affair. In many ways, it’s the piece in the book that feels the most like traditional literary fiction. It’s about how the writer can use a relationship to promise change but cannot alter fundamental identity.

Once and Forever

Giddings offers a caveat about this collection by Kenji Miyazawa, noting its 'dated politics' from a writer born in Meiji-era Japan. She discusses the fable 'The Dahlias and the Crane,' which features anthropomorphized nature. A crane just wants to relax, but dahlias constantly seek validation about their looks. The ending, where nature is subject to the whims of men, is described as unusually devastating.