A review by wathohuc
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter

3.0

This one took me a while to work through. I have to admit, somewhat grudgingly, that Porter is a very good writer. She’s well-versed and her style is natural, easy, and evocative. But while I acknowledge the superior writing talent, the stories themselves were depressing and her characters were on the whole pretty unlikeable. She was not very kind to her women characters, portraying them most often as stereotypically jealous, shrewish, vindictive, petty, and mean. Most of the male characters weren’t paragons of virtue either. They are well-written stories, but not uplifting stories. Is it worthy of a Pulitzer? I’d have to say yes purely on the strength of the writing. But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.