Judy Sobeloff is a writer and educator who has won several awards for her fiction. In the following essay, she discusses the aspects of minimalism inherent in "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried."

What is most striking about "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried," widely considered one of Amy Hempel's finest and most moving stories, is its compression and its pain. The writing here is terse; much is left out. The parts left out are what give the story its emotional power. This same minimalist style is apparent in the other stories in Hempel's first collection, Reasons to Live, and in her second, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, as well. "In the Cemetery" weighs in as one of the longest stories in either book, some of which are only a page or two in length. The other stories, too, focus predominantly...