{"id":28647,"date":"2024-06-12T11:59:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T18:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3rdactmagazine.com\/?p=28647"},"modified":"2024-06-12T11:59:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T18:59:20","slug":"whats-next-short-fiction-in-time-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3rdactmagazine.com\/whats-next-short-fiction-in-time-of-change\/book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Next? Short Fiction in Time of Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edited by Sharyn Skeeter<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Reviewed by Victoria Starr Marshall<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"What's
What’s Next: Short Fiction in Time of Change<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a summer tradition, isn\u2019t it, to set aside well-wrought literature and reach for a trashy novel or light fiction to carry us away? Or maybe not. If good writing about people and situations that are, perhaps, a little out of your cultural lane interests you, then What\u2019s Next: Short Fiction in Time of Change<\/em> should be part of your summer reading list.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next?<\/em> is an anthology of concise, thoughtful, contemporary American fiction that carries us away with stories of people contending with some of society\u2019s most intractable and durable challenges: How to fit in when you\u2019ve been left out or gain entry when you\u2019ve been shut out; how to make sense out of a new place and culture; discovering your power when you\u2019ve been conditioned or gaslighted to feel powerless; or sorting the real from the imagined in the stories we tell ourselves and others and what comes next.<\/p>\n

What came next for me as I read What\u2019s Next?<\/em> was coming to surprise endings in some stories, and my longing for the story to continue on for others as I pondered how they would<\/em> end <\/em>if they did. Many of the stories\u2014some shorter than the articles we publish in this magazine\u2014really stayed with me. I\u2019ve read full-length novels that didn\u2019t have the staying power of the moral dilemma faced by the hospital security guard in the story Nightshift<\/em>, by Charles Johnson. And, Chickens<\/em>, by Claire Boyles, the first story in the book, both disturbed and fascinated me. I found it dark and compelling. I felt a whole host of emotions reading A Good Marriage<\/em> by Pauline Kaladas, and I wanted more. I wanted the whole rest of the story, I wanted to know what came next.<\/em> This is the magic of a well-written short story\u2014it leaves you curiously hungry, yet satisfied at the same time.<\/p>\n

After reading the first few stories in succession, I started just opening the book and reading stories as they came up\u2014delighting in this box-of-chocolates style of discovery. I gained some wonderful insights through this collection of stories. Yet, the truth is, no matter how much we want to know, or what we make up, we can never truly know what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edited by Sharyn Skeeter Reviewed by Victoria Starr Marshall It\u2019s a summer tradition, isn\u2019t it, to set aside well-wrought literature and reach for a trashy novel or light fiction toMore<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-book-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat\u2019s Next? 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