Mobiles
Your stories are marvels of precision. Like Calder's mobiles, they move in perfect balance on the slightest updraft. How do you put it all together with beginning, middle, end, the rising action and resolution (just like they taught in school)? My stories are ramshackle; they lurch along in old sweaters with missing buttons, drinking from mismatched cups and saucers. They mutter; yours crow. Mine hide behind dark glasses and long bangs while yours step out into the glare of flashbulbs, square their shoulders and accept the Big Prize with the Foreign-Sounding Name never before given to Anyone So Young. There is no use to rallying round me and saying "The short story is much harder to pull off," or buying me drinks with shoulder-pounding cheer. The agent who called me from New York wanted a novel. "Short fiction is all I've got," I said. "You have to write a novel," he said. I'd rather tour the world of mobiles. I&