Of the last ten New Yorker stories I’ve read, Daniel Alarcón’s “Collectors” might be my favorite. It hums along at a good pace, has several well-observed moments and effectively sketches an environment (a dangerous prison in Peru) that is believably familiar yet unique. The story tracks the lives of two cell co-habitants in Collectors prison: Rogelio is a simple-minded mechanic brought in for drug trafficking, while Henry is a playwright imprisoned on charges of terrorism for a play he wrote. The pseudo-climax of the story (of course the hardcore prisoners end up staging a play) stretches believability, but it’s the postscript that helps put things in perspective and leaves you wondering about how at least one of the characters fares after.

My only real quibble: “Collectors” is excerpted from Alarcón’s upcoming novel “At Night We Walk in Circles”. It always bums me out a little to read excerpts; Jhumpa Lahiri’s excellent short “Brotherly Love” from a few weeks ago was similarly extracted from her new novel. Commercial interests aside I’ll admit that these are effective in getting me re-interested in these writers but I always take a moment to mourn the weekly slot that could have gone to an original short. Can’t we at least have these well-known writers promote their novels with original material — e.g. a prequel short story incorporating the novel’s characters, or new scenes involving secondary characters? Even deleted scenes might be interesting…