Tongues of Flame

Mary Ward Brown! Even the name falls trippingly from the tongue, does it not? Only in the last two years has this great woman of letters died. She lived an amazing life. This collection of stories was published when she was no spring chicken (nearly 70 years old).

She published most of the stories individually in literary magazines from the time she graduated college until the time she published the collection. She wrote like Chekhov. One of my favorite lines from the collection comes from the titular story where the narrator is discussing her love for a man named Frank. The narrator says, "Spring was Frank in a short-sleeved shirt." Ah, I think I dropped the book on the floor after reading that. The book is filled with these gems, these show more perfect sentences. (Her method of writing was always to compose in long-hand. She would write her stories on paper and then rewrite them on paper, always removing unnecessary words, which gives her prose the quality of poetry.)

I live in the state where she lived, Alabama. If I were asked to give one book that best portrays Alabama, I would give them this book. And although these stories are set in the South, they contain universal themes- love, loss, class, race, death, aging, and surviving. (I can't remember which one of those literary devils said something along the lines of this: in order to write about universal truths, you must first write from a particular place. Mary Ward Brown wrote from Alabama, but she could have and would have written well from anywhere.)

I cannot recommend these stories enough. show less

Well that was different. Not at all what I thought from the cover I had: https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780671641573-us.jpg (but that's not quite right, as there's no purple or anything weird).

Very short stories, mostly taking place in a small town outside of Montgomery in the 1980s. Issues of tradition and of race are very complicated, and Brown's treatment is clarifying, though she does almost oversimplify. There's clearly a bit of academic *L*iterary fussiness of metaphor and allusion, but the vignettes are engaging and readable straight, too.

3.5 stars rounded up because I've never read anything like it before, and I do recommend it to interested readers. There is no ya-ya sisterhood here, no debutante, little humor, not a show more whole lot of alcohol, some church business, no Colonel, few pearl necklaces. There is dialect, there are both compassion and cruelty, both love and anger.

And it's by a woman, mostly about women of all ages and both races. Even though the women tend to work harder, be more responsible, and serve more obediently than their men, this book would definitely pass the Bechdel test. show less

Very good. The stories are calm and quiet, but poignant. Recommended.

This is a book of short stories. I think my aunt gave it to me a few years ago. I remember nothing about it except the first story which was about an old woman picking out the dress she wanted to be buried in.