Short stories
In the Absence of Angels
Hortense Calisher · 1951
Synopsis
Fifteen short stories, mostly set in New York, several of which follow Hester Elkin and her brother Joe, children of a Jewish family in Manhattan. In “The Middle Drawer”, Hester opens, the week after her mother's death, the locked drawer where her mother kept a brooch from her grandmother and a photograph. In “A Wreath for Miss Totten”, a schoolteacher helps a Black pupil who stammers. Other stories leave the city for a country boarding house. All have loneliness and rejection in common.
Context
The volume brings together its author's first stories, published in magazines from 1948 onwards, and was her first book, in 1951. “The Middle Drawer” won her an O. Henry Prize, the first of the four she received. Critics praised a honed prose and a tone of worldly detachment; Gertrude Buckman, in the New York Times, found these stories sad, their characters suffering from their difference and their isolation. The collection established her reputation, and two Guggenheim fellowships followed, in 1952 and 1955.
Who it is for
Short stories, with long sentences and demanding syntax. It is better to read them one at a time. No French translation.
Prizes and reception
The first book by its author, received in 1951 by critics who admired its prose without being won over entirely.
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