Read Can't and Won't: Stories Online
Authors: Lydia Davis
Electric Literature
: “The Cows”
Fence
: “At the Bank,” “At the Bank: 2,” “The Churchyard,” “The Gold Digger of Goldfields,” “In the Train Station,” “The Moon”
Five Dials
(U.K.): “Notes During Long Phone Conversation with Mother,” “On the Train,” “A Story of Stolen Salamis,” “A Story Told to Me by a Friend,” “Nancy Brown Will Be in Town”
Five Points
: “A Note from the Paperboy,” “Her Birthday”
Gerry Mulligan
: “Left Luggage”
gesture zine
: “The Problem of the Vacuum Cleaner,” “The Old Vacuum Cleaner Keeps Dying on Her”
Granta
: “The Dreadful Mucamas”
Harlequin
: “Wrong Thank-You in Theater”
Harper’s
: “How I Read as Quickly as Possible Through My Back Issues of the
TLS
,” “The Two Davises and the Rug”
Hodos
: “Old Woman, Old Fish”
Little Star
: “Handel,” “Housekeeping Observation,” “Judgment,” “Sitting with My Little Friend,” “The Sky Above Los Angeles”
Mississippi Review
: “A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates,” “Her Geography: Alabama,” “Her Geography: Illinois,” “I’m Pretty Comfortable, But I Could Be a Little More Comfortable,” “The Washerwomen”
MLS
: “Contingency (vs. Necessity) 2: On Vacation,” “Hello Dear,” “I Ask Mary About Her Friend, the Depressive, and His Vacation,” “Letter to the President of the American Biographical Institute, Inc.,” “Molly, Female Cat: History/Findings”
New American Writing
: “The Old Soldier,” “Staying at the Pharmacist’s,” “Flaubert and Point of View”
NOON
: “Bloomington,” “The Cornmeal,” “Dinner,” “The Dog Hair,” “How I Know What I Like (Six Versions),” “The Language of the Telephone Company,” “Learning Medieval History,” “Master,” “My Footsteps,” “Not Interested,” “The Party,” “Ph.D.,” “The Song,” “Their Poor Dog,” “Writing”
Pear Noir!
: “The Bad Novel,” “Waiting for Takeoff,” “The Woman Next to Me on the Airplane”
PEN America
: “The Landing”
Plume
: “Brief Incident in Short
a
, Long
a
, and Schwa,” “Contingency (vs. Necessity),” “My Friend’s Creation,” “Ödön von Horváth Out Walking”
Salt Hill
: “Circular Story,” “Grade Two Assignment,” “Short Conversation (in Airport Departure Lounge)”
Satori
: “The Force of the Subliminal”
Sous Rature
: “The Husband-Seekers,” “The Low Sun,” “Two Sligo Lads”
Story Quarterly
: “The Woman in Red”
The Coffin Factory
: “Negative Emotions,” “The Rooster”
The Iowa Review
: “The Child,” “The Dog,” “The Grandmother”
The Literary Review
: “Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer,” “Letter to a Hotel Manager,” “Letter to a Peppermint Candy Company”
The Los Angeles Review
: “The Sentence and the Young Man”
The New York Times
: “The Seals” (original title “Everyone Was Invited”)
The Paris Review
: “The Cook’s Lesson,” “After You Left,” “The Visit to the Dentist,” “Pouchet’s Wife,” “The Funeral,” “The Coachman and the Worm,” “The Execution,” “The Chairs,” “The Exhibition,” “My School Friend,” “Local Obits,” “The Language of Things in the House,” “If at the Wedding (at the Zoo),” “The Results of One Statistical Study,” “My Childhood Friend”
The Threepenny Review
:
“The Letter to the Foundation”
The World
: “My Sister and the Queen of England”
Tim
: “Two Characters in a Paragraph,” “Two Undertakers”
Tin House
: “Eating Fish Alone,” “In the Gallery,” “The Piano,” “The Piano Lesson,” “The Schoolchildren in the Large Building,” “Swimming in Egypt”
Tolling Elves
: “Family Shopping”
Upstreet
: “An Awkward Situation”
Wave Composition
: “Industry”
Western Humanities Review
: “Awake in the Night,” “The Bodyguard,” “
Can’t
and
Won’t
,” “The Last of the Mohicans”
“If at the Wedding (at the Zoo)” is dedicated to Joanna Sondheim and Eugene Lim.
“A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates” is dedicated to Rainer Goetz.
“The Landing” also appeared in
The Daily Telegraph
(U.K.).
“The Seals” also appeared, in a much expanded version, in
The Paris Review.
“The Cows” was also published as a chapbook by Sarabande Press (2011), with photographs by Theo Cote, Stephen Davis, and Lydia Davis.
“Eating Fish Alone” was also published by Madras Press (2013) in a chapbook in the “Stuffed Animals” series along with Harry Mathews’s “Country Cooking from Central France.”
The following “dream pieces” also appeared in
Proust, Blanchot, and the Woman in Red
(Cahier #5, Sylph Editions, Paris): “The Churchyard,” “The Dog,” “The Grandmother,” “In the Gallery,” “In the Train Station,” “The Moon,” “The Piano,” “The Piano Lesson,” “The Schoolchildren in the Large Building,” “Swimming in Egypt,” “The Woman in Red.”
The following stories also appeared in the
Harper’s Magazine
“Readings” section: “The Cornmeal,” “Dinner,” “The Dog Hair,” “The Language of the Telephone Company,” “The Song,” “The Party,” “Not Interested.”
The following “Flaubert stories” also appeared in the
Harper’s Magazine
“Readings” section: “Pouchet’s Wife,” “The Chairs,” “The Coachman and the Worm,” “The Visit to the Dentist,” “The Cook’s Lesson.”
The following stories were reprinted in anthologies:
“Men” in
The Best American Poetry 2008
(ed. Wright) and
Old Flame: From the First 10 Years of 32 Poems Magazine.
“Brief Incident in Short
a
, Long
a
, and Schwa” and “Ödön von Horváth Out Walking” in
Plume Anthology.
“My Sister and the Queen of England” in
The Gertrude Stein Anthology.
“Eating Fish Alone” in
Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast.
Note about the “dream pieces”
: Certain pieces which I am calling “dreams” were composed from actual night dreams and dreamlike waking experiences of my own; and the dreams, waking experiences, and letters of family and friends. I would like to thank individuals for the use of their dreams or waking experiences, as follows:
John Arlidge for “Swimming in Egypt”; Christine Berl for “The Piano Lesson”; Rachel Careau for “In the Gallery”; Tom and Nancy Clement, and Nancy’s grandmother Ernestine, for “The Grandmother”; Claudia Flanders for “The Piano”; Rachel Hadas for “At the Bank” and “At the Bank: 2”; Paula Heisen for “The Sky Above Los Angeles”; and Edie Jarolim for “Ph.D.” (which began as a “dream” and became shorter). The rest are my own.
Note about the “stories from Flaubert” and the “rant from Flaubert”
: The thirteen “stories from Flaubert” and the one “rant from Flaubert” were formed from material found in letters written by Gustave Flaubert, most of them to his friend and lover Louise Colet, during the period in which he was working on
Madame Bovary.
This material, contained in
Correspondance Volume II
(ed. Jean Bruneau; Editions Gallimard, 1980) and dating from 1853–54, was excerpted, translated from the French, and then slightly rewritten. My aim was to leave Flaubert’s language and content as little changed as possible, only shaping the excerpt enough to create a balanced story, though I took whatever liberties I thought were necessary (in one case, for instance, combining material from two letters so that two related stories were turned into one; in another case, adding some factual material to a story to give more background to a character).
Also by Lydia Davis
NOVEL
The End of the Story
STORIES
The Thirteenth Woman and Other Stories
Story and Other Stories
Break It Down
Almost No Memory
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant
Varieties of Disturbance
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
POETRY
Two American Scenes
(with Eliot Weinberger)
SELECTED TRANSLATIONS
Madame Bovary: Provincial Ways
by Gustave Flaubert
Swann’s Way
by Marcel Proust
Death Sentence
by Maurice Blanchot
The Madness of the Day
by Maurice Blanchot
The Spirit of Mediterranean Places
by Michel Butor
Rules of the Game, I: Scratches
by Michel Leiris
Rules of the Game, II: Scraps
by Michel Leiris
Hélène
by Pierre Jean Jouve
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2014 by Lydia Davis
All rights reserved
First edition, 2014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, Lydia, 1947–
[Short stories. Selections]
Can’t and Won’t / Lydia Davis. — First edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-374-11858-7 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-374-71143-6 (ebook)
I. Title. II. Title: Cannot and Will Not.
PS3554.A9356 A6 2014
813'.54—dc23
2013033909
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eISBN 9780374711436