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Stephanie Vaughn

Chris Flynn October 12

Short story writers are often kept at a distance by publishers who are reticent to take a ‘risk’ on collections of short fiction, which we are told repeatedly do not sell. The most common question asked of those who work in the short form is, “when are you going to write a novel?” The implication is clear—short story collections are not considered ‘proper books’. As a result many fine writers are not given their due, and it can take years for their skill to be recognized.

One such writer is Stephanie Vaughn. Her short story collection Sweet Talk, which is the one and only book she has ever written, was released way back in 1990. Nifty indie publisher Other Press brought out a new version of Sweet Talk in February of this year, with an introduction by Tobias Wolff. This has caused a rejuvenation of interest in Vaughn’s work. I was recommended the book recently and when I mentioned it on Twitter, discovered that three other people I knew were currently reading it.

Vaughn is a writer’s writer, and if you need any proof of that, check out the New Yorker fiction podcast from 2008 wherein editor Deborah Treisman discusses one of Vaughn’s seminal tales, ‘Dog Heaven’ with the aforementioned champion of her work, Tobias Wolff, who also reads the story in its entirety. WARNING: You have now been introduced to several years of podcasts where famous writers talk about their favourite stories written by someone they admire, and also perform readings of self-same. This is a deep rabbit hole and you are about to lose several weeks of your life.

Several of the stories in Sweet Talk feature the same narrator, Gemma, who grows up on a series of military bases at the height of the Cold War. In a rare interview on the Rumpus earlier this year Vaughn spoke of her own upbringing as an Army brat, being shuttled to various locations and having an itinerant childhood. Since the publication of Sweet Talk she has been teaching English at Cornell University and working on a novel (at twenty years in the making, it must be damn good). Strange perhaps that her collection is still finding new fans so long after its original publication, but the stories in Sweet Talk are like mosquitos trapped in amber, outside of time somehow despite their distinctive setting. Vaughn believes that, “a short story is like a held breath and a sudden exhalation. A short story has to be felt in a single long moment to experience all its effects.”

One of the other writers Vaughn mentions in her interview is, tellingly, Téa Obreht, whose debut novel won The Orange Prize in 2011 and made everyone sit up and take note. Obreht also reads and discusses a story from Sweet Talk on the New Yorker fiction podcast, the excellent ‘Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog’ and although she has yet to release a short fiction collection herself, one is surely on the way. I first became aware of Obreht as a short story writer, and her short fiction in The Atlantic, Zoetrope and the New Yorker itself has all been stupendous. Vaughn’s legacy in the work of other short fiction practitioners is keenly felt, although many readers may not be aware of it. The re-issue of Sweet Talk is a chance to discover anew, or for the first time, one of the most influential American short story writers of recent years. Wolff sums up the collection perfectly: “These stories came to me as an illumination, and isn’t that what the best fiction does to us? In fact we’re always living next door to worlds that we don’t suspect and the best fiction suddenly illuminates that thing that’s been beside us all along and makes us see it for the first time.”


 

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by Dorothy Johnston
14 Oct 12 at 16:25

Thank you, Chris, for a fascinating introduction to a writer I haven’t come across before. I will certainly look for a copy of ‘Sweet Talk’. In spite of your introduction, it seems to me that American short story writers have never languished in the doldrums in the same way Australian ones have, that in America the short form has always had its place. It will be interesting to see how the growth of digital publishing changes the balance.

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