Nine Stories

Re-read in honour of the man's passing in late January.

When I first started thinking that I wanted to be a writer (starting at around 15 or 16), I was at the same time going through a JD Salinger phase, although in retrospect I don't think I really fully understood what I was reading at the time. Regardless, Salinger became my mental model of what “a writer” was, and the contents Nine Stories became (and in some ways, remains) the model of what I thought a short story was supposed to be - a vignette into a person's life that shows a moment of crisis or change, the type of event they'll remember for the rest of their lives.

Usually when I read short story collections, I'm happy if there's just a few stories that I absolutely love. This one's far better than that - they all range from really good to wonderful, all for different reasons.