Short stories
A Curtain of Green
Eudora Welty · 1941
Synopsis
Seventeen stories. Sister, the postmistress of China Grove, tells in full detail how her sister Stella-Rondo turned the whole family against her, and why she moved into the post office. Phoenix Jackson, a very old Black woman, walks the long way through the woods to Natchez to fetch medicine for her grandson. A travelling salesman, still weak from the flu, loses his way, his car slides into a ravine, and he asks a country couple for shelter. In a beauty parlour, Leota chatters with her client, Mrs. Fletcher.
Context
Putnam's and Harcourt Brace first wanted a novel; her agent, Diarmuid Russell, prepared a collection instead, which Doubleday, Doran accepted in January 1941. The stories had appeared since 1936 in magazines, from Manuscript to the Southern Review, then in The Atlantic and Harper's Bazaar. The volume came out in November 1941 with an introduction by Katherine Anne Porter, who had taken the author under her wing; the preface, delivered late, had delayed publication.
Who it is for
Seventeen short stories, of very varied tones, to be read separately. Translated into French by Michel Gresset and Armand Himy in 1986.
Prizes and reception
Mixed reception in 1941: praise from the New York Times, reservations from Time about its taste for melodrama. One of the stories received an O. Henry Prize.
Sources for this page 14
The pages consulted to check this page.