Have any of you read Amy Hempel's Collected Stories ? I'd never heard of her until Palahniuk wrote about her in his Stranger than Fiction n-f collection. She's like his overarching goddess. I can see why.

I'm halfway through her Collected and it's knocking my socks off. She writes minimalistic prose that McCarthy (Cormac, not Joe), Proulx, and McMurtry only wish they could write. Instead of being off-putting or stiff, her reductionism (and subsequent embellishment, a la her story “The Harvest”) draws you in, then reaches up through the page, grabbing your heart and throat with one really really really big hand.

“In the Cemetery where Al Jolson is Buried” is her widely anthologized piece, but it's not her best — I'm particularly loving “Beg, Sl Tog, Inc, Cont, Rep” and the two-page “San Francisco.”

How come I never heard of her when I was working on my MFA? One of her books was out of print at the time but others were available.

Anyone else out there read her? What's your opinion?