A collection of short stories by the foremost southern writers of today, which provides not only excellent reading but also a many-faceted picture of the South. Few of the stories are "physical action" or plot stories, the majority present one segment of southern life today. There is the static, decadent, genteel south of Allen Tate, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Andrew Lytle and Stark Young; Roark Bradford, E. P. O'Donnel, and Julia Peterkin's Negro south: Elma Godchaux and Erskine Caldwell's poor Whites, etc. The Caldwell "Kneel To The Rising Sun" is far and away the most dramatic piece of writing, Thomas Wolfe's the most artistic. Others represented are Jesse Stuart, Faulkner, Caroline Gordon, Katherine Anne Porter, etc. Throughout there is a strong tendency towards self-scrutiny, self-definition through close observation, with a sacrifice of drama to analysis -- but there is skill and poetry in the telling.
