I spoke to a writer back in November, when I attended NoirCon in Philadelphia, who was working on a new project that excited me a great deal, but I was dismayed to hear him dismiss it later as a non-priority because of its length (which he put at about 50,000 words). The inference being that nobody (I’m assuming he meant publishers) was interested in anything that short. I’d like to speak up here and officially disagree on behalf of readers. Short novels and novellas are actually what I prefer. The opportunity to absorb a story in its entirety in as brief a period as possible is always one I’ll grab at.
Which is not to say I want the Cliffs Notes version, and certainly not to suggest that I want you to skimp on character or atmosphere, but, but, but… Let’s face it, there’s a lot of word-count padding in a lot of the books I see on the shelves, and I think that economy with words is an admirable trait and an indicator of the writer’s skill if they can invest you quickly and waste no time telling their tale.
Because I haven’t got much. Time, that is. Don’t waste mine, and I’ll love you for it.
I appealed to said writer to take that book seriously and get over his fears of short projects by offering that some of my favorite books have been brief and very brief, but I'm not sure that he believed me.
So I'm trying to make a list of cracking titles with low word counts and I need your help. Here's what I've got off the top of my head:
Charles Willeford's High Priest of California
Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone
Scott Phillips' The Ice Harvest
John Ridley's Stray Dogs
Jim Thompson's After Dark, My Sweet
Kyle Minor's A Day Meant to Do Less
James Sallis' Drive
Ken Bruen's Once Were Cops
Half a dozen Stephen King titles
And how about the host of brand new ones like Tom Piccirilli's Every Shallow Cut, Nik Korpon's Old Ghosts, Ray Banks' California (and Wolf Tickets for that matter), William Ingsley's The Wrong Man and Joe McKinney's Dodging Bullets that are making me tingly with anticipation, gratitude and appreciation for storytellers getting down to the business of telling a story quick-like?
So help me out, will you? Leave me more evidence of the power and legitimacy of short novels. What's your favorite?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
