Hello my lovely readers! I'm happy that I stumbled upon this at a bookstore and decided to check it out from my local library. Let's get into it!
SYNOPSIS
This remarkable collection of twelve short stories is about the diverse folk--black and white, young and old, rich and poor, rural and sophisticated--who live in the eastern North Carolina town of Tims Creek. Among the memorable characters are Clarence Pickett, who at age three began receiving messages from beyond the grave and whose gift seems tied to a hog's ability to talk; matronly Ida Perry, haunted by a boy her judge husband may have drowned years before; Dean Williams, hired to seduce the richest black man in Times Creek, yearning after innocence while he betrays love.
MY THOUGHTS
I'm admittedly not a fan of short story collections. There's too much of a hit or miss aspect to it, in my opinion. However, I absolutely LOVED The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes.
When I saw this book at McIntyre's Books in Fearrington Village, I was immediately intrigued by the title of the book. Then I read the synopsis and decided I needed to read it. I checked it out from the library and savored every bit of it until it was two weeks overdue!
Randall Kenan was such a gifted storyteller and I can't wait to read more of his works. Only a few stories were misses for me, but the rest were perfection. The way he used the South, his characters, his writing....it was all so authentic and contained such a wild and captivating energy that I couldn't put it down. An amazing collection.
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