One More Thing by BJ Novak

This is the first in a series of reviews of short story collections.  All part of my careful campaign to bring short stories back to the respect they deserve.  See “Focus on the Short Story“

One More Thing – Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak (2014) – Last month’s short story collection by Stephen King was the kind of brilliance to make the novice short story writer want to give up.  The competition was just too steep.

This month’s collection gives us all reason to hope.  That’s not the opening salvo in trashing this collection.  Novak is best known for his work on the television series “The Office” (on screen as Ryan, plus writing and producing).  He also wrote a brilliant book called “The Book With No Pictures” for children.  I’ve included a video link at the end if you’re unfamiliar with the book.  Just amazing.

But I’m not reviewing that book.  Call this one a “little girl with the curl” book.  When it’s good, it’s very, very good.  And when it’s bad…well, it’s not horrid, but it is boring.

One of the great challenges of a short story collection is making sure that all the stories are interesting.  And that’s tough sometimes.  With 64 stories, this collection is longer than it needs to be.

Part of my issue is that once Novak finds an interesting concept, he tends to want to ride it till it’s dead.  Early on is a story titled “Something by John Grisham”, which had a clever touch of blending fiction with an actual person.  I thought it was quite clever.  But then we have a story”Comedy Central Roast of Nelson Mandela” (which I found seriously uncomfortable), and one with Tony Robbins and one with Johnny Depp…  And I was just tired of it.  That in and out quality is the most frustrating part of the collection.  None of these stories are long (they range from half a dozen pages to two lines), so you can progress quickly through them all.

At the end, you’re going to wish they had edited the book a little more severely, and that Novak would have spent a little more time developing some of the stories.  This collection would have been much improved at 40 pieces or even 30.

Why You Will Like It – Because when it’s good, it’s very, very good.  And the bad stuff generally doesn’t last for long.

Rating – *** Worth A Look