Short stories
Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels
Katherine Anne Porter · 1939
Synopsis
Three short novels. In the first, Maria and Miranda, two sisters from the South, grow up in the legend of their aunt Amy, who died young and beautiful, then discover, on meeting Uncle Gabriel and cousin Eva, what the legend left unsaid. In the second, Olaf Helton, a taciturn Swede, arrives at Mr. Thompson's dairy farm in Texas and makes it prosperous in nine years; one day a man turns up to claim him. In the third, Miranda, a drama critic in Denver, falls ill with the 1918 influenza, while Adam, the young officer she loves, awaits his departure for the war.
Context
Two of the stories were written for the most part in a few weeks of 1936, in an inn near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, together with part of the third. All three appeared in magazines, then together with Harcourt, Brace in 1939. Miranda, the heroine of two of them, returns in other stories by the author. Porter refused to have them called novellas, a word she found soft and affected. In 1940 the volume received the first gold medal of the Society of the Libraries of New York University.
Who it is for
Three long narratives, to be read separately. Translated by Marcelle Sibon as early as 1948, reissued in 1990.
Prizes and reception
Robert Penn Warren placed the title story at the summit of the short novel; Time saw in it one of the best American works of this form.
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