Two Pilgrims

by Peter Taylor

Unknown Binding

About the author

Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer. Considered to be one of the finest American short story writers, Taylor's fictional milieu is the urban South. His characters, usually middle or upper class people, often are living in a time of change and struggle to discover and define their roles in society.
Peter Taylor also wrote three novels, including A Summons to Memphis in 1986, for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and In the Tennessee Country in 1994. His collection The Old Forest and Other Stories (1985) won the PEN/Faulkner Award. Taylor taught literature and writing at Kenyon and the University of Virginia.

Reviews

[Hester · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit that, without the excellent analysis on The New Yorker Fiction Podcast I would have not noticed the deeper themes of this understated story . It sort of trundles along with the narrator driving his uncle and his lawyer from Memphis to Alabama , then there's a big event where a house catches fire and the men act heroically , then we trundle along again unconcerned .

Daniyal Mueenuddin chose it as Peter Taylor was one of his mother's favourite authors . She recognized the parallels in manners and behaviour between Deep South landed gentry and landowners in Pakistan . A sort of chivalric code of gentlemanly behavior which determines that men have a duty to intervene in a crisis to help anyone , even if they put their own lives in danger , but also that they have no impulse or desire to recount their actions after the event. This can be viewed as modesty but I also see it as feudal in that they are only concerned with their own class . The poor therefore are simply unlucky and the gentlemanly manners the impenetrable fence that maintains equilibrium.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good listen in NY times audiobooks ! Short story that gets one thinking and loved the discussion after with the narrator