Mansfield and Chekhov are, she insists, inseparable in her development as a short-story writer. With Mansfield “it was the first time I’d seen short stories used like this. She was painterly, or musical almost. She really was doing something in a short space.” Chekhov’s letters to his brother, who wanted to be a writer, also taught her valuable lessons in the form. “He told his brother to ‘rewrite it lazily’ meaning just snip, cut holes in it, cut as much as you can out, so there’s only the outline left, as much as you can bear for it still to hold its shape. Alice Munro does that. She just cuts a decade out. But you still have the feeling of space and depth.”