The great American novelist E. L. Doctorow has never been particularly noted for his short fiction, and this posthumous collection is unlikely to change that. It is somewhat of a redundant book --- it was anticipated six years ago by another retrospective collection of the writer’s shorter works entitled ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. Of the 15 stories presented here, 12 were included in that earlier volume. And what has been added? Two pieces from Doctorow’s 2004 collection, SWEET LAND STORIES, and one from the early book LIVES OF THE POETS. Even with the added material, the collected stories span little more than 300 pages, not the kind of massive volume to make Doctorow the successor of Hemingway or Updike, where the stories constitute an integral part of the body of work. Here the short works remain as footnotes to the main canon.

"Perhaps the greatest interest of the collection is in seeing Doctorow experiment with different approaches to narrative; the brevity of the form allows him to be several different kinds of writer in one book."

Which is not to say that the stories are without merit. Were this the work of a lesser writer, the present collection might be the highlight in a storyteller’s career. The rapidly moving “Jolene: A Life” has all the material of a novel crammed into its 30 pages, and reaches a devastating emotional pitch. “She married Mickey Holler when she was fifteen,” it begins, wasting no time in prehistory. By the end of the first paragraph, we have been told all that we need to know about their marriage. “He loved her, he really did, even if he didn’t know much about it.” Other high points include “A House on the Plains,” a sinister tale of love and murder, and the haunting “Edgemont Drive,” which is told entirely through unattributed dialogue, virtuosic in its technical command.

Perhaps the greatest interest of the collection is in seeing Doctorow experiment with different approaches to narrative; the brevity of the form allows him to be several different kinds of writer in one book. So we see stories both contemporary and historical. We see the author at times assume the voices of his creatures, and at others speak impersonally. He updates stories from Hawthorne and Homer, with Helen of Troy recast as an immigrant seeking a Green Card marriage, who inevitably gets embroiled in gang warfare. Never do we see Doctorow doing something he’d done before; he resisted the pitfall of finding his own formula and working through the iterations.

In more ways than one, Doctorow’s stories seem subsidiary to his novels. In some cases, they provide the germs for what would eventually be realized as longer fictions; 2000’s CITY OF GOD began life as “Heist,” and THE WATERWORKS grew out of a short story called, predictably enough, “The Waterworks.” Which leaves this curate’s egg of a book as one for the completists.