Short-story collections can be like concept albums where individual pieces flow together to create a thematic whole. At their best, these collections contain dialogues not only within the stories, but between them.
I have seen it happen with Hemingway’s in our time and James Alan McPherson’s Elbow Room. In Old New York I got to see it again, in perhaps its most successful version yet. Here are four novellas that, terrific as they read in isolation, develop when read together a unity of setting and message that transports you to another place and time.
