JOHN MADERA—Writer, Editor, Publisher

In no particular order:

The Fifth Child, by Doris Lessing
Here, Lessing shows that she can weave a succinct horror story of a child born into the wrong time. The Fifth Child clocks in 500 pages short of The Golden Notebook, but is packed with as much complex domestic nausea and conflicting emotion.

The Former World Record Holder Settles Down, by Courtney Eldridge
The story quickly devolves from hilarious to tragic. What initially appears to be a routine bout of marital ennui turns out to be much more: just wait until you find out what the world record is for. What kills me in this story though, is the way the telling jumps around in time, skipping ahead to give a little hint, and then sneaking back to an event you forgot you were in the middle of. This feels more full than a regular short-story, but it’s not long enough to be a novel.

EVER, by Blake Butler
I don’t know if this is a novel, novella, or an epic prose poem. Does it matter? Is this what this whole top ten list is all about? Making arbitrary distinctions? Well, okay. I want a chance to sing the praises of this here novella. It reads like taking a big gulp of something, and then not having room enough in your mouth to swallow, so you have to let some dribble out. Read me? It’s good. You wanted a gulp that big.

The Subterraneans, by Jack Kerouac
Listen, I’m known among friends for the statement, “I love not camping,” so as much as I tried to enjoy The Dharma Bums and On the Road, The Subterraneans was really more my speed, complete with night clubs, snazzy clothes, a complicated break-up and dark alleys. This one reads at a city pace and length.

Dragons in Manhattan, by Francesca Lia Block
This is the first time I remember encountering something that was this odd 60 page length. I read the rest of the book, skipped this story, and then went back to the middle, where this monster was sandwiched, resigned to tackling it because I’d enjoyed the other tales so much. The language is lush, the story imaginative yet real. Looking back, it’s maybe a bit flowery, but boy if it wasn’t rewarding to my thirteen-year-old self. It was an epic in the midst of abstracts, traveling across the country with Tuck Budd to find her origins.

Pastoralia, by George Saunders
I read this novella twice right in a row. It took me about 20 pages before I figured out Saunders’ voice. This was my first exposure. Then all I wanted to do was read his work always. But first I wanted to go back and catch what I had missed. Thank goodness this story is as long as it was; slow learners like me need time to catch on.

The Burrow, by Franz Kafka
I wonder what would have happened if he finished this story. Could he have sustained it for much longer? Maybe it would have ended up being a novel. I happen to like it as it stands. The anxiety never relents. “But the most beautiful thing about my burrow is stillness. Of course, that is deceptive. At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over.”

Melanctha, by Gertrude Stein
This section of Three Lives, shows Stein’s ability to tell a story pretty straight, but there are still hints of that repetition that makes her writing so downright soul-crushing. This is a reined in Stein, but it’s a good introduction for people who are suspicious.

Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, by David Foster Wallace
This novella is overblown and impeccable, something I think only Wallace could pull off with panache. I’ll be honest, all I really remember from this are interruptions and intersections. That and the fact that by the end I could feel my stomach down in my feet: that’s usually the best sign.

Tumble Home, by Amy Hempel
I’m glad Amy Hempel has stuck with her tried and true story length, but I’m affirmed by her ability to stretch one out a little more. Pretty much every sentence that Hempel writes sends my stomach down into my feet the way WtCoETIW as a whole did. This novella proves it’s not necessarily an issue of only so many of those sentences being strung together.

Jac Jemc sells books, makes monsters, and writes fiction, poetry, and the occasional review. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, finished 2nd place in the Marginalia College Contest and placed as a finalist for the Rose Metal Press Chapbook Contest. Find her HERE.

In reverse chronological order:

2009: EVER, by Blake Butler
This encompasses the ideal of novella: single setting, single character, single desire. A woman wants little else but to be outside of herself, but the possibility? The light won’t shine on that.

2006: The Session, by Aaron Petrovich
The rare cross-breed of drama and fiction, this novella is purely dialogue. Two madmen (perhaps the same man? and then a third?) attempt to uncover the mysterious death of a deranged mathematician. But who’s deranged? What happened when everything exploded?

1992: Jesus’ Son, by Denis Johnson
Technically, not a novella, more of a story cycle. But some have even called it a novel in stories. Anyway, there’s a singular point of view, our anti-hero/narrator who makes matters worse, except for himself—eventually. This is, perhaps, the single most influential book on my own writing, or at least on some of my writing.

1985: The Bathroom, by Jean Philippe Toussaint
A man insanely intrigued with his bathroom eventually leaves for Venice, only to miss his girlfriend, who comes to visit him, until he throws a dart into her forehead. Afterwards, he befriends his doctor who serves him kidneys, before our hero goes back to Paris, only to re-inhabit his bathroom. Brilliant.

1961: No One Writes to the Colonel, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
If you don’t, or didn’t, like magic realism, you’re an idiot.

1961: Dawn, by Elie Wiesel
Desperation: Jews and Nazis. Closing lines: “The tattered fragment of darkness had a face . . .The face was my own.” Fuck.

1960: Tristessa, by Jack Kerouac
Kerouac in the height of alcoholic incoherence: no sentences, fuck articles. Blow baby, like a horn. Watch Jack tail around Mexico City with a morphine addict. No NY editors touched this one, so it’s pure JK, which, take it or leave it, is a good thing for what it offers.

1949: Shane, by Jack Schaefer
I love westerns. Sorry. I do. Give me PBR and Spaghetti Westerns and make me a happy redneck. Fuck you, by the way.

1937: Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
I have to mention Steinbeck, another major influence, since we’re both from the Salinas Valley of California. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be a writer at all. I can never read this book without crying, which is more of a testament to my sentimentalism than anything. JS has another, very unknown, novella called The Moon is Down, set in WWII Europe, and written for the US Government as propaganda. It’s worth the read.

1915: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
Well, there’s just no getting around this; you have to mention it in any discussion of the novella, pretty much no matter what. It kicks ass, too. My favorite part is when Gregor’s father chucks the apple and lodges it in Gregor’s back.

1891: Wynema, by S. Alice Callahan
The first extensive piece of writing by a Native American woman, it is both Indian and Southern. This—of course—provides the sorely lacking female’s point of view on the Caucasian-American takeover of Native lands.

1853, 1855: Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street and Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville
I prefer not to say anything about either of these.

2500 BCE The Epic of Gilgamesh
Again, technically not a novella, but an epic poem. But, of the English translations we have today—the most authoritative of these, that is—this is given to us in prose. In terms of the story’s fragmentation (due only, of course, to the missing pieces, lost over time), amazingly early sense of plot, this is more novella-esque than epic. This is especially true when compared to the Iliad and Odyssey. Oh, Enkidu!

Jamie Iredell lives in Atlanta where he works as designer for C&R Press. He is a founding editor of New South. His writing has appeared–or will–in many journals, including elimae, The Chattahoochee Review, Storyscape, The Literary Review, SUB-LIT, Descant, Lamination Colony, and others. His book, When I Moved to Nevada, is forthcoming from The Greying Ghost Press. Find him HERE.

Here’s my list of novellas, in no particular order:

Willie Master’s Lonesome Wife, by William Gass

The Pink Institution, by Selah Saterstrom

Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

Frances Johnson, by Stacey Levine

Love in a Fallen City, by Eileen Chang

The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka

Lily Hoang’s Parabola won the Chiasmus Press Un-Doing the Novel Contest. She’s also the author of Changing (Fairy Tale Review Press) and The Evolutionary Revolution: A Real History (Les Figues Press, 2009-10). Her eBook Woman Down the Hall was recently released by Lamination Colony. She currently teaches & lives in South Bend, Indiana. Find her HERE.

I always have a hard time determining what constitutes a novella. For this I decided to define it as a short book. So, here are ten short books I would highly recommend (in no particular order):

My Untimely Death, by Adam Peterson

The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector

Ray, by Barry Hannah

Light Boxes, by Shane Jones

Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein

Motorman, by David Ohle

The Bathroom, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

In Watermelon Sugar, by Richard Brautigan

The Ballad of the Sad Café, by Carson McCullers

EVER, by Blake Butler

Christopher Higgs curates the art blog Bright Stupid Confetti. Publishing Genius Press has just released his chapbook Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously.