September 23, 2002
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Welty (The Optimist's Daughter; The Golden Apples; One Writer's Beginnings), who died last year, was a master of the short story, of small town eccentricities, of dialogue and place and the messiness of human relationships-she was a writer's writer. Now, seven of her essays about the craft of fiction, taken from 1978's The Eye of the Story, are repackaged together in a little book that marks a welcome break from the myriad how-to-write-a-novel-in-six-weeks guides and good-natured but often ineffectual volumes of creative encouragement. In elegant and insightful investigations, Welty considers Hemingway's moralizing, Virginia Woolf's intellectual use of the senses, the "lowlier angel" of setting, the problem of polemical, crusading fiction and the novel as "an illusion come full circle" that "seems to include a good deal of the whole world." There is some advice to be had-narrative pleasure can arise from authorial obstruction, for example-but by and large this is a book of fond analysis, addressed to the serious reader and dedicated writer.
Starred review from July 15, 2002
This dandy volume collects the seven essays Welty penned on writing between 1949 and 1973. These originally were printed in the 1978 volume The Eye of the Story and are presented solo here for the first time. She covers such subjects as place, voice, memory, and language and offers techniques writers can employ in producing short stories and novels. Anyone interested in writing or studying fiction would benefit from Welty's knowledge.
Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.