Short Stories by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813012538 ISBN 13: 9780813012537

Publisher: University Press of Florida, 1994

Synopsis

This volume collects, for the first time, the twenty-three published short stories of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Scribner’s printed Rawlings’s first short story, “Cracker Chidlings,” in 1931, just three years after she moved to an orange grove in the backwoods of north-central Florida. With a mix of frontier morality, ingenuity, and humor, the story introduced readers to Fatty Blake’s squirrel pilau and ‘Shiner Tim’s corn liquor. Just as important, it brought her work to the attention of Maxwell Perkins, who recognized her talent for storytelling and her eye for detail and who encouraged her to capture human drama in more “Cracker” stories.

Often at her best combining satire and sarcasm, Rawlings is merciless in “Gal Young ‘Un” as she bores in on two women, both competing for the same man and struggling for their dignity. The story, published in Harper’s, was awarded the O. Henry Memorial Prize for best short story of 1932 and was made into a prize-winning movie in 1979. Her most autobiographical story, “A Mother in Mannville,” describes the sense of personal loss endured by a childless woman writer. She also wrote a series of comic stories that featured Quincey Dover, her alter ego.

About this title

About the Author:

Rodger L. Tarr is distinguished professor of English at Illinois State University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Private Marjorie: The Love Letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to Norton S. Baskin.

From Publishers Weekly:

Admirers of Rawlings's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Yearling and her other novels should welcome this first collection of all but two of her short works, most originally published in the New Yorker , the Saturday Evening Post and Scribner's Magazine between 1928 and 1953. The stories, some only a couple of pages long, are presented in order of publication and come together piece by piece like the blocks of a simple homespun guilt. From the early ``Jacob's Ladder'' to ``A Mother in Mannville'' and ``Fish Fry and Fireworks,'' Rawlings sharpened her storytelling skills and deepened her understanding of the backwoods world of her Florida neighbors and the African Americans who worked for them. She had a knack for setting each scene with a few homey details, putting the reader right inside the story. Dialect, colorful but always intelligible, was used to great effect. In ``Cracker Chidlings'' Fatty Blake critiques his neighbor's Brunswick Stew: `` `I was born and raised in Floridy and I'm pertickler. I don't want no squirrel eyes lookin' at me out o' my rations!' '' Tarr's introduction provides essential background to set these stories in the context of the time and Rawlings's efforts to face her own feelings about race. ``Black Secret,'' her last work on the subject, won an O. Henry Prize, as did ``Gal Young Un.'' Illustrations.

Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0813012538
• ISBN 13: 9780813012537
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 386
• Editor: Tarr Rodger L.