PRIZE STORIES OF THE SEVENTIES: FROM THE O. HENRY AWARDS
Selected by William Abrahams; Doubleday; 404 pages; $12.95
If the novel is, as Randall Jarrell suggested, a long narrative that has something wrong with it, the short story of the past decade might be said to suffer from a tendency toward perfection. Talented writers keep popping up in the few magazines that still publish fiction. The technical level is high; yet the values that make a good storycompression, subtle tone and a microsurgical eyestrike many readers as too precious and inhospitable. One can inhabit a...
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