Book giveaway: question for short story geeks

One of the stories in Best of European Fiction 2011 has an ending that owes a lot to the ending of a story by a very well-known short fiction writer. Name this piece, and the story it pays tribute to. Chuck in the author names too, for bonus points.

If a hint would come in handy, dip into my earlier in-progress review/post about the book here.

The sender of the most amusing correct answer, as a comment to this blog, will receive a copy of the thunking great 400-plus page Best of European Fiction 2011, thanks to publishers Dalkey Archive, as part of the May is Short Story Month giveaway.

Entries close: 31 May 2011

Winner to be announced: 1 June

9 thoughts on “Book giveaway: question for short story geeks”

  2. Thanks for that Vanessa. That is a good answer, but there may well be more than one right answer here. And the winner will be the person who posts the most amusing take on the right answer, so don’t be put off by what is already posted. (Hint: have a look at my earlier post about Best European Fiction for clues – you do not need a book to answer this question, it is a web-friendly one!)

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  3. Because you used the word “Chuck”, I’m guessing you might mean the of Ersan Üldes piece headed “The Trial Exam” that you linked to and “Guts” by Chuck Palahniuk, because they both play on the idea that somebody has written right up to their dying moment, to get round the silliness of a story in the voice of a character who is supposedly dead. It’s a bit like the graffiti on a wall that says:
    BEWARE
    FALLING
    BRI

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  5. If I catch your drift, The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk was stolen from The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum an illustrated book for children by Kate Bernheimer and Nicoletta Ceccoli. From Booklist: “Inside a large snow globe, inside a toy museum, is a castle, and children who press their faces against the glass can spot a tiny girl in the tower… Sometimes she even dreams about you.”

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  6. Hi Jill, the extract is very enticing but this sounds like a beginning, and the question was about stories with very similar endings? Lane

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  7. Pingback: Fiction Writers Review » Blog Archive » Short Story Month 2011: The Collection Giveaway Project

  8. I would hazard to guess you are intimating the Raymond Carver Story. He maintains that he wasn’t a born poet. nor a born anything.. nor in fact not a dead anything… so perhaps “Raymond is no longer with us – Carver is dead’ by Ognjen Spahic of Montenegro – is just another way of teasing us into his mulit faceted world of trickery; whizzing our heads about till we are so giddy with possibilities that we find ourselves depleted on the kitchen floor, a burnt cigarette in one hand and an old typewriter on our chest; wondering what on earth has just happened. Carver got us.. thats what.

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