Guy de Maupassant is a staple of AP French literature courses and gothic horror collections, someone more revered than widely read and discussed. Sandra Smith aims to change that with The Necklace and Other Stories, her set of translations of Maupassant's most famous stories, updating his late 19th-century French into something close to 21st-century vernacular. For fans of Maupassant, Smith provides an easy, engaging read to replace older, outdated translations, and newcomers to his work will quickly understand why he was so successful during his lifetime.
The Necklace and Other Stories is separated into three sections, each dealing with a particular theme of Maupassant's work: French Life, Tales of War and Tales of the Supernatural. By bunching stories by subject matter, Smith aims to show the breadth of his interests. Maupassant was equally as gifted at depicting the hard-luck life of the French middle class as he was telling stories about ghosts, insanity and horror. Still, it's hard not to feel the story order was a bit of a mistake, given that the thrilling supernatural ones come last, muddling the pace of the collection as a whole.
Maupassant's stories often end on what could be considered punchlines, as if the story were a long joke ("The Necklace," in particular, feels like an extended gag). Readers of modern short stories might find such structures archaic, but it feels like a breath of fresh air when placed alongside collections by some current authors. --Noah Cruickshank, marketing manager, Open Books, Chicago, Ill.