“A Novel” vs. “A Novel In Stories”
A few months ago, I picked up the new novel by Maxinne Swann. I had read several of her short stories in literary magazines and I admire her work, so I was curious to see how she would write a novel. At this point, I also want to note that I had hunkered myself down for a long read. With short stories, there’s a different expectation. With a novel, you need to prepare yourself to share a single storyline for several days, so you kind of have to shove things around in your mental space to make room for that.
I was really disappointed to discover that the novel was actually a collection of short stories. I checked the cover of the book to make sure that I hadn’t misread something, but it clearly states “A Novel” right there:
I felt that this was a case of misrepresentation. My opinion is that it’s fine to call a collection of stories “A Novel in Stories,” but to call it a novel is not right. I guess I can understand that from a marketing angle, it’s easier to try to sell a novel than a collection of short stories. However, I just don’t think that books need to be headlined as a novel. It would have been just as easy to leave out those two words above the title, but if the publisher is going to go ahead and do that sort of thing, then at least put the right description on it.
My friend Matt said, “That’s kind of funny, because I can just see you reading this ‘novel’ and saying to yourself, ‘Hey! I’ve already read half of this novel when they had been published as SHORT STORIES.’”
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