Amy Hempel – The Harvest

Here's a little something for the weekend. Amy Hempel is an amazing minimalist writer who has earned herself a bit of a cult following. Anyone who has read Chuck Palahniuk's essay on her work in Non-Fiction will know of her by reputation, but may not necessarily have read any of her stuff. Some of her best writing is out of print, so I'm glad I discovered this gem from her short story anthology At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom, which is currently selling second-hand on Amazon for upwards of £120.To give you a quick taster, here's the first line:

"The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me."

Anything that starts like this has to be good, right? Go read the whole thing now – it won't take more than ten minutes, I promise – although you will want to read it again straight afterwards!