Yours (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading)

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In his introduction to "Yours" by Mary Robison, Ben Greenman asks, "What is a life?" He means to define it concretely: "It’s a series of days laid end-to-end and given definition either proactively or retroactively—or, most commonly, through a mixture of both."

But what, then, he goes on to wonder, is a fiction life? "A fictional life is a narrower window that professes to see the whole landscape via powers of magnification...In “Yours,” Mary Robison solves this problem aggressively, by limiting herself to a single day." He concludes, "When a story proceeds with such unshakable, idiosyncratic confidence regarding what it should contain—and what should be left out to focus more attention on those contents—a better question might be this: What isn’t a life?"

About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition they deserve.

About the Author:
Mary Robison is the author of four story collections and three acclaimed novels. Her most recent book, One D.O.A., One on the Way; was a New York Times Notable Book. She has been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1977 and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and an O.Henry Award. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she teaches at the writing program at the University of Florida.

About the Guest Editor:
Ben Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker and the author of several acclaimed books of fiction, including Superbad, Please Step Back, and What He’s Poised To Do. His new novel, The Slippage, is out in May. He lives in Brooklyn.