Mary Ward BrownBesprekingen
Auteur van Tongues of flame
Besprekingen
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She published most of the stories individually in literary magazines from the time she graduated college until the time she published the collection. She wrote like Chekhov. One of my favorite lines from the collection comes from the titular story where the narrator is discussing her love for a man named Frank. The narrator says, "Spring was Frank in a short-sleeved shirt." Ah, I think I dropped the book on the floor after reading that. The book is filled with these gems, these perfect sentences. (Her method of writing was always to compose in long-hand. She would write her stories on paper and then rewrite them on paper, always removing unnecessary words, which gives her prose the quality of poetry.)
I live in the state where she lived, Alabama. If I were asked to give one book that best portrays Alabama, I would give them this book. And although these stories are set in the South, they contain universal themes- love, loss, class, race, death, aging, and surviving. (I can't remember which one of those literary devils said something along the lines of this: in order to write about universal truths, you must first write from a particular place. Mary Ward Brown wrote from Alabama, but she could have and would have written well from anywhere.)
I cannot recommend these stories enough.