Can't and Won't

This story collection “is evidence of a writer who is in total control of her own peculiar original voice; its pleasures are unexpected and manifold” (Kate Christensen, Elle).

Lydia Davis’s stories may be literal one-liners, like the pithy “Bloomington.” Or they may be surprising investigations into mundane disruptions, such as “A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates.” The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert’s correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author’s own dreams, or the dreams of friends.

What does not vary throughout Can’t and Won’t, Lydia Davis’s fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.