Varieties of Disturbance
Davis invented a new form: the micro-story, the story as philosophical proposition, the story that is really a question. She won the Man Booker International Prize for her complete work. MFA programs now consider her essential for discussions of form.
Multiple readers say they connected with Davis's stories only intellectually, not emotionally; one puts it bluntly: “she just doesn't appeal to me as much as certain other writers.” The same case-study, list, and questionnaire format that fans praise reads to detractors like a sociology paper rather than fiction. Kirkus, largely positive overall, still flags a “tendency to summarize rather than dramatize.” Readers who've followed Davis's catalog say this collection repeats the moves of her earlier book Samuel Johnson Is Indignant without pushing them further. The shortest entries, some just a line or two, strike skeptical readers as gimmicks. More than one closes a piece with the same reaction: “eh, well THAT happened. Moving on.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
