The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

Just finished The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty last night. She's a prolific author, so it's a formidable collection. Her early stories are very similar to Flannery O'Connor's in some ways. Southern Gothic. She tends to give a gritty, depressing picture of normal life in the South. The small, isolated towns in which her stories are set give her the opportunity to explore the darker side of human nature. However, as her style develops, her style becomes more and more beautiful. Though she doesn't leave behind her dark thematic material, she treats it more gently, with more pathos. Her later stories have some really lovely moments in them. Her ability to weave similes and metaphors is unparalleled, and I went through my copy with a pencil underlining the best bits. Nevertheless, one has to take these stories a few at a time. Read a couple, then go find something a bit more cheerful.