Sudden fiction : American short-short stories / edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas ; with a frontistory by Robert Coover ; and afterwords, about the short-short story form by forty of America's finest writers.

"A Peregrine Smith book."

A Sudden Story / Robert Coover -- Mother / Grace Paley -- Can-Can / Arturo Vivante -- Even Greenland / Barry Hannah -- The King of Jazz / Donald Barthelme -- Reunion / John Cheever -- Twirler / Jane Martin -- Sunday in the Park / Bel Kaufman -- Five Ives / Roy Blount, Jr. -- Song on Royal Street / Richard Blessing -- Pygmalion / John Updike -- A Fable / Robert Fox -- The Moving / James Still -- The Cliff / Charles Baxter -- No One's A Mystery / Elizabeth Tallent -- The Merry Chase / Gordon Lish -- Yours / Mary Robinson -- A Walled Garden / Peter Taylor -- Heart Attack / Max Apple -- Thank You, M'am / Langston Hughes -- Popular Mechanic / Raymond Carver -- Turning / Lynda Sexson -- Say Yes / Tobias Wolff -- The Hit Man / T. Coraghessan Boyle -- A Questionnaire for Rudolph Gordon / Jack Matthews -- I See You Never / Ray Bradbury -- Children of Strikers / Fred Chappell -- The Bank Robbery / Steven Schutzman -- Tent Worms / Tennessee Williams -- Sitting / H.E. Francis -- The Bridge / Pamela Painter -- Dog Life / Mark Strand -- The Hatchet Man in the Lighthouse / William Peden -- Happy / Joyce Carol Oates / Dinner Time / Russell Edson -- The Anatomy of Desire / John L'Heureux -- Class Notes / Lucas Cooper -- A Very Short Story / Ernest Hemingway -- Sunday at the Zoo / Stuart Dybek -- Things I did to Make it Possible / Francois Camoin -- Noel / Michael Plemmons -- The Personal Touch / Chet Williamson -- The Vertical Fields / Fielding Dawson -- The Visitation / Tom Whalen -- The Strong Man / George Garrett -- Important Things / Barbara L. Greenberg -- Roth's Deadman / Joe David Bellamy -- Tickits / Paul Milenski -- The Coggios / Sharyn Layfield -- How J. B. Hartley Saw His Father / James B. Hall -- The Neighbor / Russell Banks -- Reading the Paper / Ron Carlson -- Thief / Robley Wilson -- Isla / Sandra J. Kolankiewicz -- Crossbones / Leonard Michaels -- Rosary / Robert Kelly -- The Sock / Lydia Davis -- Billy's Girl / Gordon Jackson -- Speed of Light / Pat Rushin -- Gerald's Song / Philip F. O'Connor -- Moving Pictures / Charles Johnson -- Any Minute Mom Should Come Blasting Through the Door / David Ordan -- The Balck Queen / Barry Callaghan -- Sense of Wonder, Sense of Awe / Craig McGarvey -- Blind Girls / Jayne Anne Phillips -- The Signing / Stephen Dixon -- The Quail / Rolf Yngve -- Sleepy TIme Gal / Gary Gildner -- The Artichoke / Marilyn Krysl -- A Lost Grave / Bernard Malamud.

Presents over seventy short stories five pages long or less by such American authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, Langston Hughes, and Raymond Carver, and includes authors' commentary on the genre.