Funny Short Stories

Here at Five Books, we are often asked to recommend funny short story collections. This is a tall order. It’s unusually difficult to recommend comic writing—sense of humour being so specific to the individual—but here are five brilliantly original stories, from popular collections, all of which take a wry or surreal approach to their troubling subject matter.

‘Ghoul’ by George Saunders, in his collection Liberation Day: Stories

George Saunders is a modern master of the short story. You might be familiar with Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo, or even his dissection of the Russian short story, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but for a very long time he was best known for his bizarre, tragicomic short stories that are very funny, as well as weird and often violent. I’ve listened to nearly all of them now, and ‘Ghoul’ is one of my favourites; it’s also a great introduction to Saunders as it features many of his trademark motifs and preoccupations. ‘Ghoul’ is set in a dystopian theme park, based underground and styled to represent a kind of earthly Hell, and is told through the eyes of an actor playing a ‘Squatting Ghoul.’ (Read, perfectly, by Jack McBrayer in the audiobook.) The inhabitants of this subterranean hellscape are plagued with power cuts and floods, and visitors never seem to arrive. What does it mean? Is it an atheist parable? Even the author isn’t sure. What I can tell you is that Saunders’ stories make me laugh, they make me think, and occasionally they make me gasp out loud in horror. He is one of America’s greatest living writers.

Also recommended: The Tenth of December by George Saunders

‘You’re Ugly, Too’ by Lorrie Moore, in Like Life

I just love the irreverent stories of Lorrie Moore, who brings an acerbic wit and lightness of touch to even the darkest subject matter. In my opinion, her greatest gift lies in her sharp characterisation, in which she captures in a few deft sentences an entire personhood of a type you might meet in the street—flawed and wrongheaded and yet lovable for all their quirks. Those skills are displayed beautifully in her very funny short story ‘You’re Ugly, Too,’ whose protagonist Zoë Hendricks, a history professor at a liberal arts college in Illinois, who—single and directionless, and full of disdain for her Midwestern students and colleagues—struggles to find purpose and meaning. “You know,” one date tells her, “I just shouldn’t try to go out with career women. You’re all stricken.” Is she a pleasant character? Not really. Is she ridiculous? Yes, a little. But the wry humour with which she wreathes her desperation is completely compelling—just as Moore so brilliantly leavens her otherwise shattering account of the parents of a baby being treated for cancer in her famous story ‘People Like That Are the Only People Here.’

Also recommended: Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

‘The Dance We Do’ in Single, Mellow, Carefree by Katherine Heiny

Katherine Heiny’s wonderful, heartwarming-without-being-soppy novels combine domestic drama, gentle humour and skewering social comedy, so I was pleased to discover that she published a short story collection early in her career (well, mid-way through an interrupted career) gathering together some of the stories that first made her name. Single, Mellow, Carefree features rather a lot of adultery—a preoccupation Heiny has linked to her husband’s career as a spy, and the lies such a job necessitates. (“He used to be under death threat from the K.G.B.,” as she once recalled. “Then they called one day and said they were over it.”) But the story I’ve picked out is a droll story about a mother frantically organising a children’s party, featuring an underwhelming clown, a misshapen cake, and the advances of an unsettlingly mature second grader.

Also recommended: Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny

‘Me Talk Pretty One Day’ by David Sedaris, in his collection of the same name

Sedaris writes a combination of fantastical fables and highly autobiographical stories. All are told with the same brio and irreverent energy, but the realist tales are deeply poignant in their conclusions and subject matter.  If you’ve never come across his work before, I’d recommend starting with this 2000 collection, which features some of his very best work.  The title story discusses Sedaris’s experiences at a French language school as he grapples with the complexities of grammar and largely fails to express himself in a new tongue. But the real humour comes from the quirks of his fellow students (including an Argentinian who, when asked to explain his hobbies to the class in French, hazards at “making sex with the women of the world”) and the “sadistic” tutor who seems to enjoy cutting her clumsy wordsmiths down to size. (“Oh yeah?” she says to a Yugoslavian who claims to love everything life has to offer, “And do you love your little war?”) This collection also features two more of my firm favourites, ‘The Youth in Asia’ (a review of his family’s pet-owning history, which is both hilarious and deeply melancholy) and ‘Go Carolina’ (a recounting of childhood speech therapy for a lisp). Sedaris first made his name writing for the radio show This American Life and his stories are still, I think, appreciated to their best advantage in audio. I can’t now read his work without hearing his wry intonation and perfect comic timing. So do I suggest you try the audiobook, which is read by the author.

Also recommended: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

‘Pig’ by Roald Dahl, in Kiss Kiss

Roald Dahl is best known for his children’s fiction, but he also wrote many (extremely dark) short stories for an adult audience. They have the same simplicity of voice and form as his other writing, but are more macabre in tone. One of his best known is the story ‘Pig,’ in which a young orphan is brainwashed by his vegetarian aunt into believing that meat is disgusting and harmful to eat; ultimately—spoiler alert—he tastes pork by accident, and, fascinated, goes to an abattoir where he gets lethally caught up in the slaughtering machinery. This is the same mind that produced Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with the handbrake off. You’ll either love them or hate them—so why not give Dahl’s short stories a go.

Also recommended: Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

I also think that Samantha Irby’s humorous collections Wow, No Thank You and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life deserve honourable mentions; technically these are personal essays, but I suspect they will scratch the same itch and they genuinely made me laugh out loud in public places.