Literary geography and the short story: setting and narrative style

Abstract

This article deals with setting and narrative style in the literary geography of short fiction. In its first section it reviews four commentaries on geographies of the short story. In its second section it makes a close reading of Alice Walker’s one-page story ‘Petunias’ in which it argues that for the story to happen readers must contribute to the event not only a high level of participatory engagement but also a willingness to exercise a particular kind of spatial knowledge.