Lydia Davis's Psychological Minimalism

While Lydia Davis's fiction in many ways resists categorization, her frequent use of allusion, terseness, and tendency to omit important details as a means to generate implication place her firmly within the American literary Minimalist tradition. Within this mode, however, she is both an innovator and outlier. Though Davis's narrators often communicate through direct reportage, a common technique in Minimalist pieces, they often convey processes of thought rather than physical, external action. Authors who write within the movement, such as Ernest Hemingway, explore psychological tension and distress, but seldom, if ever, as openly. Davis experiments with a number of forms, including missive and aphorism, thus contributing to the complexity and richness of the style.