More Time

<em>More Time</em> studies the contemporary short story and focuses on four recent collections: Alice Munro's <em>Dear Life </em>(2012); Andre Dubus's <em>Dancing After Hours</em> (1996); Joy Williams's <em>The Visiting Privilege</em> (2015); and Lydia Davis's <em>Can't and Won't </em>(2014). Each publication has appeared near the conclusion of a career devoted all but exclusively to short stories with each defining a 'late style' honed over a lifetime. As well each diverges from others in ways that have profoundly shaped our generic conceptions and collectively they represent the four most innovative practitioners of the past half-century (with the arguable exception of Raymond Carver). <p/>Yet in an era when writing programs <em>The New Yorker</em> and distinguished journals all promulgate the short story it remains relatively under-examined as a major literary form. We continue to argue about what a story inherently is ignoring how differences among practitioners enliven the field. Dubus Munro Williams and Davis each defy critical efforts to identify the story form's presumed constitution marked by a supposedly special shape or requisite length or distinct narrative trajectory. And the very contrast among their efforts reveals the expansiveness of the genre though few have taken such a cross-glancing interpretive approach. This volume opens up discussion shifting from close analysis into larger speculation about possibilities established by the most innovative writers in their later work.<br>