Around 1950, the short story genre in America was at the highest and at the same time most delicate moment of its history. While the number of magazines publishing short fiction and of short story collections reached its apex, political and ideological pressures sought to undermine the prestige of the short story in order to promote other literary forms. In this episode, Sam Reese tells the fascinating story of four writers who in those years used the short story as an outlet for countercultural expression. Sam Reese is Senior Lecturer at York St. John University, a short story writer and a jazz music critic. 
 
 
Works cited: 
Sam Reese, The Short Story in Midcentury America: Countercultural Form in the Work of Bowles, McCarthy, Welty, and Williams (Louisiana State University Press, 2017). 
Sam Reese, ‘Only anecdotal: Diane Williams, loneliness and short story form.’ Short Fiction in Theory & Practice, 12.1 (2022), pp. 19-30. 
Sam Reese, ‘Eleven Kinds? Loneliness and Reading for Type with Richard Yates.’ American Literature, 94.2 (2022), pp. 357-380. 
Sam Reese, Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature, and Loneliness (LSU Press, 2019). 
Sam Reese (ed.), The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins (NYRB, 2024). 
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Random House, 1952). 
William Burroughs, The Naked Lunch (Grove Press, 1959). 
Mary McCarthy, The Group (Harcourt, Brace, 1963). 
Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps (Simon & Schuster, 1942). 
Tennessee Williams, One Arm and Other Stories (New Directions Publishers, 1948). 
James Salter, Last Night: Stories (Vintage, 2006).

Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.