Another writer had a project where he wrote about residents in an apartment building. I really liked them because, for example, the girl who is having relationship problems with her husband is the same girl who would, in a different story, be the cause of a shy man’s affections (and she is completely oblivious to his situation and vice versa).
Does anyone know any short story collections where it is about a group of people, and each story has a different narrator, or at least rotating narrators, where they are not all directly interacting with another at all times, but sometimes very indirectly?
This question is so narrow. But thanks if you know anything.
Maeve Binchy has a couple of short story collections like that. Two that I can remember are * The Lilac Bus* and Victoria Line, Central Line (I think the latter was published in the U.S. as London Transport.)
I’m really looking for the cool effect of something that seems so minor in one story is suddenly shown to be major in another story, and relationships as seen through different people’s eyes (whether stranger or obsession).
Rashomon (the all-time classic) The Biography of Dom Manuel of Poictesme (James Branch Cabell–way more than what you’re looking for, but what the hell) Godbody (Ted Sturgeon–actually a novel, but the chapters are done in different styles with different narrators)
You might also want to check out the fiction at Eastgate Systems–they’ve done a lot of lit-snob hypertext, and should have some stuff along the lines you’re looking for.
253 by Geoff Ryman; the title refers to the number of people in a London tube train.
Each short chapter is from a different character’s point of view and as you read you build up ideas of everybody from snippets of all the different stories…
It was originally written to be read on-line (although it’s seen print since), so you could follow the relationships between people in all sorts of directions and not necessarily read it sequentially, I guess it may still be on the internet somewhere…
There is a little of this in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series of comic books (now collected into 10 volumes), especially if you include the two spin-off miniseries series Death: The High Cost of Living and Death: The Time of Your Life. Not really the focus of the work, though.
If you have access to a library that carries The New York Times Book Review, start flipping through back issues. This mode of storytelling has been increasingly popular in the last few years, especially with younger writers. I haven’t paid attention to particular titles, but I see this description in reviews all the time. For that matter you could look through the short stories section at your library. The copy on the book jacket will likely tell you immediately if the stories are connected in this way.
One author who frequently writes like this is Andrea Barrett: