" Rawlings is] among the first ten American story writers
today."--"The New Republic," 1940"She will help to make the
American short story a living part of our literature."--"Boston
Transcript," 1940"One of the two or three "sui generis"
storytellers we have."--"Atlantic Monthly," 1940
In "The Yearling," her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 1939,
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote the bleak but noble life of the
Florida Cracker into American hearts. She secured her popularity as
a storyteller and her status as a major voice in American
literature in 1942 with the instant success of "Cross Creek," the
autobiographical vignettes that highlight her ability to create
short fiction.
Still, no assessment of the full range and power of her talent has
been possible without this volume of all twenty-three of her
published short stories, collected together here for the first
time. Most appeared in "Scribner's Magazine, The New Yorker,
Harper's Magazine" and the" Saturday Evening Post."
"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, the famous Scribner's editor, who recognized her
talent for storytelling and her eye for detail and who encouraged
her to capture human drama in more "Cracker" stories.
Though Rawlings was at home in a man's world, much of her short
fiction is told in a woman's voice. She 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.
Often at her best combining satire and sarcasm, Rawlings wrote a
series of comic stories that featured Quincey Dover, her alter ego.
"She is, of course, me," Rawlings wrote, "if I had been born in the
Florida backwoods and weighed nearly three hundred pounds." One
story Quincey narrates, "Benny and the Bird Dogs," reportedly
amused Robert Frost so much that he fell off a rocking chair in a
fit of uncontrollable laughter while listening to Rawlings read
from it.
Like others who wrote about the South, Rawlings grappled with the
problem of how to portray honestly, yet without racism, the
situation and the language of her neighbors. Her empathetic
description of blacks and her portrayal of the Florida Cracker
contribute a valuable perspective on twentieth-century American
culture in transition.
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