Contemporary American Short-Story Cycle

<p>James Nagel offers the first systematic history and definition of the short story cycle genre as exemplified in contemporary American fiction bringing attention to the format's wide appeal among various ethnic groups. He examines in detail eight recent manifestations of the story cycle all praised by critics while uniformly misidentified as novels: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich; Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid; Monkeys by Susan Minot; The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros; The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien; How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez; The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan; and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler. Nagel proposes that the short-story cycle with its concentric as opposed to linear plot development possibilities lends itself particularly well to exploring themes of ethnic assimilation which mirror some of the major issues facing American society today.</p>