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The Southern Woman: New and Selected Fiction
Born in rural Carrollton, Mississippi, Elizabeth Spencer, in the great tradition of Falkner, Welty, and O’Connor, has been writing masterly stories and novellas about Southerners for more than forty years. Her short fiction, infused with the green of place and the elegant precision of an original voice, has earned her a reputation as on of our most accomplished writers of the form. Madison Smartt Bell writes, “Few contemporary short-story writers have mastered or understood the art, and one can be grateful to her for keeping it so marvelously alive.”
The Southern Woman collects the best of Spencer’s shorter fiction, including six new stories written in recent years. The book displays Spencer’s range of place—the agrarian South, Italy in the decade after the Second World War, the gray-sky North, and, finally, the contemporary Sun Belt. In “The Little Brown Girl,” young Maybeth discovers the limits of friendship in a racially divided world. In “First Dark,” a young man returns home to tiny Richton, Mississippi, a “land of mourning and shadows and memory.” In the long elegiac story “The Cousins,” a group of Southerners roams through Italy, brushing with love and regret and the grip of family. Also included here is “The Light in the Piazza,” the novella about an American woman and her daughter in Florence that first brought Spencer widespread acclaim, selling more than two million copies worldwide and never falling out of print.
In this capstone collection, Elizabeth Spencer firmly claims her place in the long heritage of the Southern short story. As George Garret has written, “In this age of the short story, nobody is writing stories of the depth and delicacy, the strength and subtlety, found in the stories of Elizabeth Spencer.”
The Southern Woman collects the best of Spencer’s shorter fiction, including six new stories written in recent years. The book displays Spencer’s range of place—the agrarian South, Italy in the decade after the Second World War, the gray-sky North, and, finally, the contemporary Sun Belt. In “The Little Brown Girl,” young Maybeth discovers the limits of friendship in a racially divided world. In “First Dark,” a young man returns home to tiny Richton, Mississippi, a “land of mourning and shadows and memory.” In the long elegiac story “The Cousins,” a group of Southerners roams through Italy, brushing with love and regret and the grip of family. Also included here is “The Light in the Piazza,” the novella about an American woman and her daughter in Florence that first brought Spencer widespread acclaim, selling more than two million copies worldwide and never falling out of print.
In this capstone collection, Elizabeth Spencer firmly claims her place in the long heritage of the Southern short story. As George Garret has written, “In this age of the short story, nobody is writing stories of the depth and delicacy, the strength and subtlety, found in the stories of Elizabeth Spencer.”
480 pages, Hardcover
First published July 31, 2001
18 people are currently reading
215 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Spencer
111 books57 followersElizabeth Spencer was an American writer. Spencer's first novel, Fire in the Morning, was published in 1948. She has written a total of nine novels, seven collections of short stories, a memoir (Landscapes of the Heart, 1998), and a play (For Lease or Sale, 1989). Her novella The Light in the Piazza (1960) was adapted for the screen in 1962 and transformed into a Broadway musical of the same name in 2005. She is a five-time recipient of the O. Henry Award for short fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 19, 2020
The only word I can use for this collection of short stories is elegant. Elizabeth Spencer started out as a southern writer, then went to Italy and wrote about that setting too, although her protagonists were still from the south. The novella, "Light in the Piazza", is included in that section, and I thought it was brilliant. Then she married and moved to Montreal with her husband. The stories included from that time in her life took a darker turn, and some of them were downright sinister in atmosphere. The same was true of the section titled New Stories. They were all fantastic short stories though, she seems to be a master of the form.
In 1986, she came back to the south and lived in Chapel Hill, NC until her death. This was a selection chosen by Modern Library and is a beautiful edition. It's a keeper.
In 1986, she came back to the south and lived in Chapel Hill, NC until her death. This was a selection chosen by Modern Library and is a beautiful edition. It's a keeper.
November 25, 2021
My first instinct is to shy away from clubs or groups of humans, but I found this author by that very thing. From the Goodreads application, and from my friends list, I found my way to a group that reads forgotten authors who in the past were well known. It always surprises me when I look at popular books from years gone by. Like music, so many great authors whose work is forgotten. It makes me sad in a way, thinking of all the great lessons and experiences can be lost. I think I’m pathological about loss, I fear it because I’ve been able to control it reasonably well in my personal life. I enjoyed these stories, the writing is superb, it didn’t fully resonate on an emotional level (neither does Ernest), hence the 4 stars. It’s thanksgiving today, some relief from work, just the wife and I doing nothing. The encroaching pain in my joints is becoming familiar, I know my reading pace will diminish in time, as this reader won’t enjoy great art fully when the physical and mental drain energy away.
This is a collection of short stories, a genre that used to be a favorite, some longish (one is called a novella & published separately), some medium and some short. The book is divided into her “southern” genre, an “Italy” phase, “up north” and “new”. They represent a tremendous variety, yet issue from a southern woman’s perspective and predilections, seemingly biographical. Spencer was influenced by a Eudora Welty, a contemporary in Mississippi who she must have known, as well as Flannery O’Connor and, of course, the bulwark of Faulkner. I found these stories to be excellent, authentic to a place and time, and entertaining. I actually read “The Light in the Piazza” first, based on my group’s recommendation. This is the one that made her famous, and it is excellent. However, I loved all these stories, of human life written over a long lifetime, I would guess. I enjoy reading about the details of life, there is no better way to understand the deep Jim Crow south than in literature, and this fits the bill. Mostly these stories are domestic, and during travels to Italy, and living in Canada or the far north. They seem to represent the fabric of the author’s life. She must have been very satisfied with her prodigious output and the remarkable success they achieved in literary magazines.
Here's some juicy gossip about clannish neighbors on p. 117: “…there was no reason, no reason on earth, for the Bufords to school at all. They would be exactly the same whether they went to school or not. Nothing you told them soaked in, they were born knowing everything they knew; they never changed, the only people they really listened to were other Bufords.”
Spencer draws exquisite character, here a young southern lady in her prime, p. 155: “Nothing that day, could have stopped her laughter. She was beautifully, ,languidly, atop a fine horse on the year’s choice day at the peak of her life.”
A strange story of how conflicted love between cousin’s sets their fates for a lifetime (p. 223), the first lines showing talent in a short story setup: “I could say that on the train from Milan to Florence, I recalled the events of thirty summers ago and the curious affair of my cousin Eric. But it wouldn’t be true. I had Eric somewhere in my mind all the time, a constant. But he was never quite definable, and like a puzzle no one could ever solve, he botherer me. More recently, I had felt a restlessness I kept trying without success to lose, and I had begun to see Eric as its source.”
Nostalgia for a youthful time with family and friends is poignant here (p. 253), I have similar feelings about being my grandparent’s farm house (I can still hear that screen door slam): “I was sitting back in the corner, watching, and I felt, if I live to be a thousand, I’ll never feel more love than I do this minute. Love of these, mh blood, and this place, here. I could close my eyes for years and hear the gate scrape, the steps pause, the door latch and unlatch,, hear her say, ‘There was this toadfrog…’ I would want literally to embrace that one minute, hold it forever.”
Spencer’s famous story, here conversing with the father of the Italian boy who wants to marry her beautiful but mentally damaged daughter, reminiscing about young love (p. 287). “I myself at a younger age, at a much younger age- do you know my first love was a peasant girl? It was at the villa where I had gone out with my father….I still can dream of her, only her- I will never succeed to dream of others.”
Spencer is superb at writing about place (p. 316), here in one of my favorite stories about an unstable woman who cannot adjust to motherhood with her traditional in-laws: “We had a house on the river and it was beautiful, right on the water…one of the old townships, and you can describe it for yourself, if you so desire. There can be rugs of any texture, draperies of any fabric, paneling both painted and stained, shelves to put books in, cupboards to fill with china and linen. The choice of every upholstery sample or kitchen tile was top-level decision, the struggle for perfection had a life-and-death quality about it.” Later (p.317) the strictures of a strong husband “Before I knew it he had enveloped me all over, encased me like a strong vine. My family could believe my good fortune no more than I could. It was too good to last, but it did; to good to be true, but it was.” This story had a beautiful complex redemptive ending, a woman inexplicably living her mature years along in a small, sparsely furnished apartment. Spencer’s talent makes this mystery easy to comprehend as the reader is caught up into her head and peculiar streams of thought.
This is a collection of short stories, a genre that used to be a favorite, some longish (one is called a novella & published separately), some medium and some short. The book is divided into her “southern” genre, an “Italy” phase, “up north” and “new”. They represent a tremendous variety, yet issue from a southern woman’s perspective and predilections, seemingly biographical. Spencer was influenced by a Eudora Welty, a contemporary in Mississippi who she must have known, as well as Flannery O’Connor and, of course, the bulwark of Faulkner. I found these stories to be excellent, authentic to a place and time, and entertaining. I actually read “The Light in the Piazza” first, based on my group’s recommendation. This is the one that made her famous, and it is excellent. However, I loved all these stories, of human life written over a long lifetime, I would guess. I enjoy reading about the details of life, there is no better way to understand the deep Jim Crow south than in literature, and this fits the bill. Mostly these stories are domestic, and during travels to Italy, and living in Canada or the far north. They seem to represent the fabric of the author’s life. She must have been very satisfied with her prodigious output and the remarkable success they achieved in literary magazines.
Here's some juicy gossip about clannish neighbors on p. 117: “…there was no reason, no reason on earth, for the Bufords to school at all. They would be exactly the same whether they went to school or not. Nothing you told them soaked in, they were born knowing everything they knew; they never changed, the only people they really listened to were other Bufords.”
Spencer draws exquisite character, here a young southern lady in her prime, p. 155: “Nothing that day, could have stopped her laughter. She was beautifully, ,languidly, atop a fine horse on the year’s choice day at the peak of her life.”
A strange story of how conflicted love between cousin’s sets their fates for a lifetime (p. 223), the first lines showing talent in a short story setup: “I could say that on the train from Milan to Florence, I recalled the events of thirty summers ago and the curious affair of my cousin Eric. But it wouldn’t be true. I had Eric somewhere in my mind all the time, a constant. But he was never quite definable, and like a puzzle no one could ever solve, he botherer me. More recently, I had felt a restlessness I kept trying without success to lose, and I had begun to see Eric as its source.”
Nostalgia for a youthful time with family and friends is poignant here (p. 253), I have similar feelings about being my grandparent’s farm house (I can still hear that screen door slam): “I was sitting back in the corner, watching, and I felt, if I live to be a thousand, I’ll never feel more love than I do this minute. Love of these, mh blood, and this place, here. I could close my eyes for years and hear the gate scrape, the steps pause, the door latch and unlatch,, hear her say, ‘There was this toadfrog…’ I would want literally to embrace that one minute, hold it forever.”
Spencer’s famous story, here conversing with the father of the Italian boy who wants to marry her beautiful but mentally damaged daughter, reminiscing about young love (p. 287). “I myself at a younger age, at a much younger age- do you know my first love was a peasant girl? It was at the villa where I had gone out with my father….I still can dream of her, only her- I will never succeed to dream of others.”
Spencer is superb at writing about place (p. 316), here in one of my favorite stories about an unstable woman who cannot adjust to motherhood with her traditional in-laws: “We had a house on the river and it was beautiful, right on the water…one of the old townships, and you can describe it for yourself, if you so desire. There can be rugs of any texture, draperies of any fabric, paneling both painted and stained, shelves to put books in, cupboards to fill with china and linen. The choice of every upholstery sample or kitchen tile was top-level decision, the struggle for perfection had a life-and-death quality about it.” Later (p.317) the strictures of a strong husband “Before I knew it he had enveloped me all over, encased me like a strong vine. My family could believe my good fortune no more than I could. It was too good to last, but it did; to good to be true, but it was.” This story had a beautiful complex redemptive ending, a woman inexplicably living her mature years along in a small, sparsely furnished apartment. Spencer’s talent makes this mystery easy to comprehend as the reader is caught up into her head and peculiar streams of thought.
May 4, 2016
She is elegant, honest, real. She travels, her writing is modern, she's brilliant with twisted endings. On a few, I thought she might have been writing for The Twilight Zone.****H.James bores me to anguish, but his settings, Venice, etc. are admirable. Spencer takes those settings and gives them life and vitality, her settings and landscapes are lush. She does justice to about any subject she touches. The stories are grouped in three sections. The South, Italy, and Up North (Montreal).I'm sure it's just a matter of taste, but I really like her.
January 5, 2025
really liked the new stories—the emotions were heightened and the characters more complex. all were good but didn’t stand out
January 9, 2020
Just great stories. Some nice and comforting, some surprising. Distinct characters, plots that may or may not take you home. Read more Spencer.
December 14, 2009
I grew up in the so-called New South, where there are sweet tea and skyscrapers, Gone with the Wind screenings in posh movie theaters, and Faulkner reading groups, but no stereotypical southern drawl and no cornbread. In an age where regional identity yields to interstates and chain hotels, can I still call myself a southern woman? After reading Elizabeth Spencer’s collection of short stories, I think I can.
Spencer’s South is not just a location; it is a kind of voice, a way of thinking and of speaking. “She was one of the old school of Southern lady talkers,” Spencer writes of one of her characters. “She tried to protect you from even a moment of silence.” So goes the conversation of Mrs. Harvey in “First Dark,” a story about a well-to-do Mississippi socialite struggling to come to terms with her daughter’s undistinguished suitor. In a volume that shifts from the bayous of Biloxi to the piazzas of Florence, voice, as much as setting, becomes the guiding force of Spencer’s fiction. Nearly all of her protagonists are women, and their voices—funny, shocking, anguished, and strange—propel the reader through story after story.
The Southern Woman is split into four sections: “The South”; “Italy”; “Up North”; and “New Stories.” Many of the stories in “The South” deal with rural landscapes, religious orthodoxy, and the legacy of slavery. In “Sharon,” a young girl first learns of the relationship between her White uncle and his Black housekeeper. Sexual awakening is the theme of the sultry “Ship Island,” about a girl from a poor family coming of age among Marine Club boys, eccentric millionaires, and a raucous adult Bible class. Spencer’s heroines are never dull; they break horses and chase ghosts through small towns and back roads.
The narrators in The Southern Woman often wrestle with family conflicts, and stories across all of Spencer’s geographies feature runaway relatives, errant husbands, and anxious parents. One of the most touching pieces in the collection, the novella “The Light in the Piazza,” tells the story of an American woman, Margaret Johnson, who brings her daughter Clara to Florence. Clara is permanently brain damaged from a childhood accident, and when she falls in love with a young Italian man, her mother learns to see her daughter as an adult for the first time: “a warm, classical dignity had come to this girl,” her mother realizes, “and no matter whether she could do long division or not, she was a woman.”
Spencer is not afraid to take risks in her writing, with mostly superb results. In some of the stories, particularly “The Business Venture” and “The Cousins,” the narrator’s voice is so intimate it becomes almost cloying. Spencer’s quirky characters are fascinating when they waver between the real and the fantastic. “The Finder” tells the tale of a man with a supernatural ability to find all lost things everywhere, and “I, Maureen” tells the story of a woman whose life changes after she experiences a vision in a flying piece of glass. Both of these stories exemplify Spencer’s dreamlike sense of comedy—a humor that both laughs and thinks.
Whether strolling through Southern farmlands or European squares, Spencer’s characters are fresh, funny, thoughtful, and, above all, honest. You’ll find someone to like in The Southern Woman, no matter how regional—or region-less—you are.
Review by Barbara Barrow
Spencer’s South is not just a location; it is a kind of voice, a way of thinking and of speaking. “She was one of the old school of Southern lady talkers,” Spencer writes of one of her characters. “She tried to protect you from even a moment of silence.” So goes the conversation of Mrs. Harvey in “First Dark,” a story about a well-to-do Mississippi socialite struggling to come to terms with her daughter’s undistinguished suitor. In a volume that shifts from the bayous of Biloxi to the piazzas of Florence, voice, as much as setting, becomes the guiding force of Spencer’s fiction. Nearly all of her protagonists are women, and their voices—funny, shocking, anguished, and strange—propel the reader through story after story.
The Southern Woman is split into four sections: “The South”; “Italy”; “Up North”; and “New Stories.” Many of the stories in “The South” deal with rural landscapes, religious orthodoxy, and the legacy of slavery. In “Sharon,” a young girl first learns of the relationship between her White uncle and his Black housekeeper. Sexual awakening is the theme of the sultry “Ship Island,” about a girl from a poor family coming of age among Marine Club boys, eccentric millionaires, and a raucous adult Bible class. Spencer’s heroines are never dull; they break horses and chase ghosts through small towns and back roads.
The narrators in The Southern Woman often wrestle with family conflicts, and stories across all of Spencer’s geographies feature runaway relatives, errant husbands, and anxious parents. One of the most touching pieces in the collection, the novella “The Light in the Piazza,” tells the story of an American woman, Margaret Johnson, who brings her daughter Clara to Florence. Clara is permanently brain damaged from a childhood accident, and when she falls in love with a young Italian man, her mother learns to see her daughter as an adult for the first time: “a warm, classical dignity had come to this girl,” her mother realizes, “and no matter whether she could do long division or not, she was a woman.”
Spencer is not afraid to take risks in her writing, with mostly superb results. In some of the stories, particularly “The Business Venture” and “The Cousins,” the narrator’s voice is so intimate it becomes almost cloying. Spencer’s quirky characters are fascinating when they waver between the real and the fantastic. “The Finder” tells the tale of a man with a supernatural ability to find all lost things everywhere, and “I, Maureen” tells the story of a woman whose life changes after she experiences a vision in a flying piece of glass. Both of these stories exemplify Spencer’s dreamlike sense of comedy—a humor that both laughs and thinks.
Whether strolling through Southern farmlands or European squares, Spencer’s characters are fresh, funny, thoughtful, and, above all, honest. You’ll find someone to like in The Southern Woman, no matter how regional—or region-less—you are.
Review by Barbara Barrow
February 14, 2010
Although I'm not a fan of the short story, I'd read Elizabeth Spencer's grocery list. Lovely, graceful writer.
June 8, 2015
Cette nouvelles d’Elizabeth Spencer, une très digne héritier spirituelle d’Henri James à l’écriture sobre et élégante, au style tout autant elliptique et mystérieux.
July 16, 2018
I'm not really a short story person, and I don't want to finish this one. I thought the dark undertones of the stories I read were fascinating, in the 'I'm not sure I want to read or understand this but I can't look away' kind of fascinating. I suppose they are true to life, in that there is so much suffering mixed in with the good. But they just kind of drag on and on, and I keep eyeing the new books on my shelf, which tells me it's time to move on.
September 8, 2023
I didn't hate it, the writing is well done, but I found the southern sections a little cringy and I didn't really care about the other characters.
September 25, 2009
I guess I am just not the right audience for "Southern" literature. I have a trail of unfinished books by authors acclaimed as "classic examples" of what the South has to offer. I felt that many of these short stories by Spencer had no weight, no plot, no forward momentum. "Airy" was how one critic described them. Well, so is cotton candy but that doesn't mean I want a whole bucket of it! Maybe if I could have brought myself to read to the end I would have found something substantial, but I live by the motto "Life's too short to read bad (or boring) books!" So I left this on my "unfinished" shelf and moved on.
April 1, 2011
I really like stories about Southern families, probably because it's familiar to me. The stories of front porches and y'all and polite boys aren't just cliched--they're really part of the world where I live. This was a collection of short stories and for the most part I enjoyed them. However, I did skip a few (ghosty types and just plain boring ones)...and I was reminded why I didn't really enjoy short stories in composition classes in college. I HATE stories that don't give you the background and setting for the events that happen. I find myself feeling confused and detached when I read short stories. Give me a novel any day!
April 24, 2010
This is a book club selection and while the group has decided to read selections from the book I read the entire collection. I was not very impressed and do not think the book lived up to the hype I received prior to reading it. Several of the stories were intriguing but nothing stood out to me as being extraordinary. Jack of Diamonds was my favorite in the collection and was intriguing enough that I will likely go see the play at the local theatre. I think it will be a challenge to discuss more than a few selections in a group setting.
June 7, 2013
I first read the story "Light in the Piazza" in a book I checked out from the library. (Can't quite recall when.) I read a whole collection of her stories set in Italy. Those remain my favorite, but this larger collection is well worth it, and a delight to hold in the hand. The print might seem small to some, but the object of the book is a pleasure to hold as well as read.
June 15, 2010
Easy to read. Looking for short stories told very differently? This might be your book...When done I'll update...
August 18, 2010
Ship Island - great story.
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May 3, 2017I was trying to figure out whether Elizabeth Hardwick or Elizabeth Spencer wrote the Golden Stallion. Not because I thought it was a wonderful story in and of itself. Because it was so odd, I thought some others might be interesting. I strange approach, though sometimes it works. Take Bowen, for example.
Turns out I was looking for Hardwick, but these are still pretty good, when they consent to be about something.
Turns out I was looking for Hardwick, but these are still pretty good, when they consent to be about something.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews