The Universal Contained In the Moment

Because of the extremely short length of the stories contained in Sudden Fiction International, the subjects of the narratives tend toward the momentary. Many concern events that take place within only a few minutes, but within these fleeting instances is the root of some great universality.

The very first story of the collection is The Falling Girl. It begins with the protagonist Marta leaping from the top of the skyscraper and ends with her hitting the ground. In between, she converses with each floor, the upper floors populated by the young and beautiful, the lower ones with the old and tired. She believes she is on her way to a great party below, but as she descends, she realizes that more pretty girls are falling with her. The author has created a scenario in which a few seconds encompass an entire life.

The...