flash fiction

As a big fan of the strange short work by writers like Gary Lutz and Lydia Davis, I was drawn to Lindsay Hunter’s new book, Daddy's, nestled next to an anticipated Lutz rerelease in the small press section of Powell’s Books. Many of the writers in this section are faithful upholders of the short story, a form that can be hard to market and is often thought of by more commercial writers and publishers as practice on the way to a novel. But the writers I love, the ones who choose the short story as their primary form, use carefully chosen words to place their characters in unexpected, sometimes disturbing situations. Then they leave you to make your own conclusions about what you’ve encountered. I hoped that this was the kind of thing I’d find in Hunter’s Daddy’s, and the jacket blurbs bolstered my hope. Kyle Minor wrote, "Lindsay Hunter won’t be caught lie-telling in the name of nice. The miniature stories in Daddy’s are fierce and unapologetic." I’m happy to report that Hunter’s book did not disappoint.