Little novels

I've just finished reading In the Quick, by Kate Hope Day. It's a slim novel, with fifty-three chapters, many of them quite short. Some of my favorite novels over the last two years have been "little" books. Jenny Offill's The Dept. of Speculation, or Alexandra Chang's Days of Distraction. West, by Carys Davies.

Something about the size of the books makes me happy. They aren't massive meals, enough to feed a family reunion; they're little snacks, or carefully measured-out servings, just enough to satisfy while still leaving me wanting.

I think about this when I write The Dark Age. These books have changed how I see the book I'm writing now; I think it's a small book, reining itself in, unwilling to overstay its welcome. I want it to be that way. Something one could read in an afternoon, perhaps?