SOURCE: "The Short Stories: No Lies in the Darkness," in Theodore Dreiser: Our Bitter Patriot, Southern Illinois University Press, 1962, pp. 114-23.

In the following essay, Shapiro examines several of Dreiser's short stories, asserting that while some of them are effective literary achievements, Dreiser's style was more suited to the novel form.

Students usually get an unfortunate and inadequate introduction to Dreiser's fiction, for though his talent lies in the lengthier form of the novel, he too often is presented as a short-story writer. Assorted collegiate anthologies sandwich his contributions between the shorter efforts of Henry James and Ernest Hemingway, and it would, in truth, take a truly dedicated reader to be inspired to sample more of Dreiser's work.

Much of Dreiser's effects in his novels depends on a steady, cumulative emotive presentation, small, pointed, meaningful additions which add to the formal action of the fiction. The short stones...