This thesis contains an interesting discussion of how to understand the novel in stories (short story cycle) vis-à-vis the novel. It is free to download and read from the link below but the PDF-file is encrypted and there is no abstract (at least none that I can find).
You should therefore download the file itself if you want to read the contents. The academic discussion is about 25 pages out of 88, whereas the rest contains fiction.
Source: Meyer, Sarah, “Short Story Long: Towards a Poetics of the Novel Stories” (2016). CUNY Academic Works.