Florida is after all a much bigger place than Winesburg, Ohio, and to claim one book could cover all its territories would be a folly. But this ultimately is less important than you might expect. And yes, admittedly all of these stories are set in Florida or contain a Floridian. One might be forgiven for believing that the most important link in a group of connected stories titled Florida, would indeed be Florida. This is exemplified by Florida (Riverhead), the most recent book from Lauren Groff, previously the author of four works of fiction, including the novel Fates and Furies, famously named a favorite by President Barack Obama. But for the best writers, the connected story collection is a form that delivers a pay-off that less consciously grouped stories cannot. The choice to link one’s stories can be a crass decision, driven by the marketplace and made by MFA students anxious to turn their workshop submissions into books, or by tenure-line professors anxious to meet the demands of annual publication and book production. It’s an oft-repeated dictum in creative writing circles that if you want to publish your book of stories, it had better have some kind of connection-either conceptual, thematic, or narrative. And this, ideally, is how linked short story collections work. Goldstein’s accumulation of unique stories set within a larger pattern creates a deeper subject. Each episode has its own arc, its own themes, but taken together the episodes might lead a listener to ponder the very nature of reconciliation, why some reconciliations fail and others succeed, one’s own tendencies toward avoidance or confrontation or forgiveness. It’s sometimes funny, sometimes slight, and sometimes devastating. Lately I’ve been listening to Jonathan Goldstein’s podcast Heavyweight, in which Goldstein helps negotiate long overdue reconciliations between people.

Florida by Lauren Groff