The Short Story Priesthood

The audiobook of _A Swim in a Pond in the Rain_ is really, really well done; they've got people like Glenn Close and Nick Offerman reading the stories, followed by Saunders analyzing in his own voice. I liked it a lot.

As for this review: ehhh. I take issue with the premise that the primary value of these "craft books" is to impart the capability to actually produce (novels in King's case, short stories in Saunders'). Certainly, there's far less toolbox advice in _Pond_ than in _On Writing_. I'm interested, like I assume most readers are, in having a better appreciation of the form Saunders is writing about, and in that regard, I thought the book was quite successful.

Saunders, meanwhile, is quite up-front about the fact that his marking up of Chekhov isn't going to turn his readers into Chekhovs; he's not sure this stuff can be "taught" either.

Regardless, that "the lone useful lesson" Saunders offers is that "there can be no method" to short-story-writing seems like an ungenerous and superficial takeaway from the book. You could level the same criticism at Rakim's _Sweat The Technique_, another "craft book"; ain't none of us gonna be Rakim after reading it. But I don't think Paoletta could have gotten away with porting this review to _Technique_. I think maybe the reasons why are interesting.

> So how is it that I’m supposed to write a short story again?

I haven't read the book, but by the author of this reviews own description of the book’s genesis and nature, it seems not even superficially directed at answering this question as such—not because Saunders views it as unanswerable, but because he presumes the reader already has a suitable approximation of the answer and is looking for tools for defining it, and if you are asking that question with no idea of the answers you aren't the target audience.

There are plenty of books aimed at getting you from square zero to a basic idea of writing (whether it's short-story or some other form), but this doesn't appear to be one of them.