Certain People (Coffee-To-Go Short-Short Story Series)

Roberta Allen's collection of short stories Certain People begins and ends with an unnamed man whose lover has left him for a cook. Indeed, this particular character resurfaces throughout the slender volume in various stages of disintegration. He becomes, simply, the man who was left for a cook, just as other of Allen's characters become the bald man or the Italian woman or just the woman. Names are in short supply here.

This kind of short and ultrashort fiction operates according to different rules than standard short stories. Characters are not developed so much as exposed; the shortest pieces set up a situation in a few deft brush strokes, then reveal the emotional pulse of the characters caught in that moment. What makes this collection work is the painterly eye with which Allen limns in her details and the honesty of her characters' revelations.