Eudora Welty Stories Essays And Memoir [Hardcover]

It's small wonder that the Library of America chose Eudora Welty as the first living (at that time) author published in this prestigious series. Welty was the kind of writer people routinely call "an American institution." But don't let the sweet white-haired-old-lady image fool you: Welty's work is anything but benign. For more than 50 years, Welty spoke with a fierce and uncompromising literary voice. Or, rather, voices: the stories collected in this volume feature a dizzying array of characters, each of whom seems to whisper directly into the reader's ear. From the toxic rage of "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" to the jazzy rhythms of "Powerhouse," these tales blaze with intensity and a comic energy that's both gentle and fierce. Even that bane of junior-high-school speech tournaments everywhere, "Why I Live at the P.O.," benefits from rereading; as far as this brand of down-home farce goes, Welty does it better than anyone. Bringing together the contents of Welty's four short-fiction collections, this Library of America volume also includes several essays as well as Welty's very fine 1984 memoir, "One Writer's Beginnings." In it she speaks of connections, continuities, the way both her fiction and her experiences emerged gradually into focus over time:

...suddenly a light is thrown back, as when your train makes a curve, showing that there has been a mountain of meaning rising behind you on the way you've come, is rising there still, proven now through retrospect.

This volume is that light thrown back; the full import of Welty's enormously influential work is perhaps apparent only now, in this substantial and rewarding retrospective of her career. --Mary Park

Congratuations to Welty on becoming the first living writer to be included among the Library of America's prestigious ranks. This sterling collection includes an amalgam of all her longer fiction, such as The Robber Bridegroom, The Ponder Heart, and The Optimist's Daughter, as well as her complete short fiction, plus a selection of essays and autobiographical writings.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Library's first publication of the work of a living author efficiently showcases the universally praised fiction of southern regionalist whose early stories were championed by such notable contemporaries as Katherine Anne Porter and Robert Penn Warren. The Stories volume includes 41 pungent and resonant tales (counting as individual stories the seven chapters of Welty's 1949 masterpiece, The Golden Apples) that unforgettably display their creator's sure grasp of racy local idiom and color (``Why I Live at the P.O., ``Powerhouse''), compassionate scrutiny of social inequity and racist violence (the fable-like ``A Worn Path'' and the furious ``Where is the Voice Coming From?''), and mischievous inventive power (``Petrified Man,'' ``The Wide Net''). The companion edition, Complete Novels (ISBN 1-883011-54-X), conveniently gathers together works that, while generally less known than Welty's stories, often equal their structural concision and thematic clarity. Most deserving of a second look, perhaps, are the rueful country comedy The Ponder Heart (1954) and the best family-reunion novel ever written (and it's much more than that): 1970's Losing Battles. Welty, who's 90 and still lives in (her birthplace) Jackson, Mississippi, has understandably produced little new work in recent years. But her supple, funny, gently judging voice is heard again to stunning effect throughout this indispensable homage to one of our greatest writers. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"Stories, Essays, and Memoir" contains all of Welty's collected short stories, her first book, "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" (1941), stories based on her travels, and the ever-popular memoir, "One Writer's Beginnings" (1984).