Of course, I’d recommend the recent compilation of all her collections (also known as The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis) because she’s just that good, but if you’re looking for a shorter read or prefer to read collections in their own entity, then I’d have to push Varieties of Disturbance. Published in 2007, it contains a lot of micro-fiction, perfect for reading during commutes and lunch breaks.
Her spare, elliptical short fiction is critically acclaimed, but it forms a challenging body of work, dispensing with straightforward narrative in favor of a microscopic examination of language and thought.
Davis’s new collection, “Varieties of Disturbance,” continues that approach. Sometimes, a title can be nearly as long as the story, as in “Mother’s Reaction to My Travel Plans,” whose entire text reads: “Gainsville! It’s too bad your cousin is dead!” We could almost text-message it, but then we wouldn’t get the effect of the surrounding white space, against which the words seem to suggest an almost gnomic quality. We might miss the exclamation marks, the italics, the iambic pentameter; we might miss the insight that we’re missing something.
Poetry & Hums 