Two story collections: "Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self," by Danielle Evans, and "World Gone Missing," by Laurie Ann Doyle

Today I am writing briefly about two books of short stories that I have read recently. On 1/12/21, I wrote about how struck I was by the power and vividness of Danielle Evans’ 2020 short story collection, intriguingly titled “The Office of Historical Corrections.” I was so impressed by that collection that I obtained her earlier book of stories, “Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self” (Riverhead, 2010), and was equally impressed by it. By the way, those are both great titles, aren’t they? The 2010 book was blurbed as “stunningly confident,” “fearless,” and “bold,” and I completely agree with those assessments; those qualities stand out. The stories are mostly about young African-American women who experience various dilemmas. Even though the dilemmas often include common ones related to sex, pregnancy, and money, they are in no way predictable. The second short story collection I read recently is “World Gone Missing” (Regal, 2017), by Laurie Ann Doyle. The author lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and her stories are set there (here, for me! And you know I always like San Francisco settings for fiction!). As the title implies, in each story someone is looking for someone else who is missing – a father, a brother, a friend, a lost love, a birth mother. The stories are sad, yet the feelings of the characters are more complex than just sadness; their feelings include frustration, loss, and even an unexpected sense of freedom. Both of these story collections are truly engrossing and thought-provoking, and I recommend both of them, even for those readers who don’t usually gravitate to short stories.