Reader Impressions: Thirteen Stories, by Eudora Welty – October 2025 > Likes and Comments

As this book consists of a collection of stories, there isn't a separate board for those who have finished it. Everyone can post here but please take care not to reveal information that might lessen other readers’ enjoyment.

I highly recommend reading the introduction to this collection by the editor Ruth Vande Kieft. It is an excellent overview and a help to understanding Welty.

This was my first exposure to Southern Literature years ago when I was taking a class and we read this collection. Really enjoyed it and I will try to revisit it.

I was left cold by "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" - 8 of which appear in "13 Stories" - but since I have the Collected Eudora Welty on my shelf, I took it out and marked the stories in this collection and will try again. Unfortunately, John, I don't have that intro you mentioned.

I will try to join in, but this is a slow reading month for me because of family commitments. I've read most of these stories already because I love Welty.

I am also planning to join in. It’s been a long time since I’ve read Welty so I’m looking forward to it!

Lisa (NY) wrote: "I was left cold by "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" - 8 of which appear in "13 Stories" - but since I have the Collected Eudora Welty on my shelf, I took it out and marked the stories in this..."

It’s good that you can participate, Lisa. The intro is well written, but not essential. I actually also have Welty’s Collected Stories. I liked the 13 collection because it matched up well to the ones that were my favorites.

I have only read her stories, but would like to eventually read one of her novels.

I finished The Wide Net, the first story in the collection. It is a great story — a meditation on marriage with all of these metaphors hovering over it — the net, the river, the storm, men, mud, boats, catfish. It is almost ghostly and not any part of it seems to have any daylight. The entire story is at night. His wife Hazel seem like an apparition who only arrives at the end. I suppose appropriate because things thought to be seen actually cannot be seen.

The other thing about Welty is there are no wasted words. Things are taut, tightly held.

In The Wide Net, both William and Hazel have strong wills. This was almost like a game they were playing and she told him it would happen again but in a different way! She’s a feisty woman. Doc said women didn’t like the water but that they had other ways of getting their way.

I am glad The Wide Net is in this collection. It is a great story. Soon I will be joining in . Looking forward to more discussion.

I'm reading a Modern Library version that I have on my shelf, which contains all but 2 of the 13 stories. The Wide Net is included and I got a lot of joy out of reading this one again. Welty's humor becomes clearer with each reading. She certainly knows her people and their speech patterns too.

Just finished A Still Moment. Did not endear Audubon to me.

The second story is Old Mr. Marblehall. It is a short one about a 60 year old man who leads a double life. The big mystery, which Welty does not answer, is what happened in his early life? So, interestingly enough, you find yourself in a brief mystery without an answer. I may have to read it again to make sure I did not miss anything.

I need to go back and read The Wide Net. I'm vaguely remembering this story but I remember thinking about how impactful it was.

To Diane's point, I really, really like Welty's humor and it's very understated and subtle too, and she uses it in her stories as a nice break from any tension or difficulty.

John, I just read Old Mr. Marblehead, shades of The Twilight Zone. It's more common than you might think. I once sat in a courtroom waiting for my small claims case to be called. I watched as 3! bigamy cases were called. In one of them, the two wives worked together and finally put two and two together.

I have to say I was not expecting the dual lives in Old Mr. Marblehead. I was enjoying the gothic descriptions of the inside of the old house which was perfect. Just exactly what you imagine an older southern house to look like inside. “Deathly looking tapestry, wrinkling and thin.” And the shutters like eyelids!

Funny but the name Mr. Marblehall reminded of The Petrified Man — at least in terms of two people sort of calcified — and darn I look at the Table of Contents and there is Petrified Man a couple of stories down.

Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden is about a misrepresented black man who has a disability - a deformed foot - who was a circus performer of grotesque acts. The whole thing is a conversation between the man who was the barker and a cafe owner. The barker wants to right past wrongs of the exploitation of Lee Roy. This was rather ambiguous.

I liked the Keela story, a mix of humor and sadness. The circus acts of people biting the heads off chickens or rats or bats was a real thing in the past, and kidnapping or buying children or handicapped people was one way of going about it. I've read of several instances of siamese twins or dwarfs being bought from parents who considered them to be unpleasant obligations.

I finished Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden. I sometimes find stories that are primarily conversations to be difficult to follow. But the back and forth was the perfect way to frame this story. A retelling from the author would not work as well. The characters told the story in their own voices.

Finished A Worn Path today. I believe this is the second story I ever read by Welty — Powerhouse was the first — and it cemented for me a high regard for Welty. My memory of the story was of a considerably longer one, for some reason, but I enjoyed its compactness. The name Phoenix does harken back to the mythical bird.

I sometimes wonder if the script writers for the movie Falling Down took some inspiration from A Worn Path. That was, to me, an incredibly sad but moving movie, as the character played by Michael Douglas attempted a journey to get to his son’s birthday party.

I was definitely moved by Phoenix’s determination despite all of the obstacles in her path. A sad but touching story. I liked the reference to the bird, phoenix and could see the metaphor in her story.

The Petrified Man was hilarious in an oft-putting way. I forgot how good Welty was with capturing banter. Pitch perfect. The first line is a treaure: “Reach in my purse and git me a cigarette with no powder on it if you kin. I don’t like no perfumed cigarettes.”

I went and purchased Welty’s The Collected Stories. It has a great introduction by Ann Padgett.

I loved The petrified Man for its realistic beauty shop gossip. It’s just like you go to get your hair done and your hairdresser is your therapist! You talk about things you don’t necessarily tell everybody!

Welty’s humor was on the dark side. The fact that women had to keep up appearances at this time was evident with the woman who had to get her hair done before she went in to have her baby! My how we’ve changed!! I could care less about my hair and what look like giving birth!!

Lori wrote: "I loved The petrified Man for its realistic beauty shop gossip. It’s just like you go to get your hair done and your hairdresser is your therapist! You talk about things you don’t necessarily tell ..."

I once read a great interview with her and I would love to read it again, but I’ve never found it. I think it was a Paris Review interview, but it has not been published in book form, to date. Probably done in the late 70s.

PS. I did find the interview with Welty. It was from 1972 and was in The Paris Review. Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to read the full interview. I may subscribe. The Writers at Work interviews in The Paris Review are some of the most fascinating I have ever read.

I read Livvie today. Still processing this one about a really young girl married to a really old man.

A Still Moment is a story that will require several readings in order to grasp it all. It’s really an astute way to bring 3 real life people together where they all experience a moment of the sublime. Nature is almost another character. I knew who Audubon was but had to look up Lorenzo Dow (an eccentric traveling preacher) and James Murrell (an outlaw). You could go down many rabbit holes and spend hours with this one.

Diane wrote: "I read Livvie today. Still processing this one about a really young girl married to a really old man."

Livvie is still several stories away in my book.

Lori, when Audubon shot that heron it was an excruciating moment for me. I didn't realize the other 2 characters were real people as well. I'll have to look them up.

A Worn Path is such a favorite, I've read it several times. The old woman's perseverance and love for that boy is a shining beacon.

I know, Diane! That was horrifying! I didn’t realize Audubon painted them after killing them. Seems extreme.

I did know he killed them first, to get the details perfect. But those 3 men admiring the bird in a quiet moment, then the gunshot!

I wanted to like A Still Moment, but I did not. If I had not been given advance warning that Audubon was THE Audubon, I am actually unsure I would have surmised it.

I actually like and find stories with real characters from history to be interesting. I believe Doctorow did this in Ragtime. It seemed like Welty was trying for a Rime of the Ancient Mariner theme. This story read like a contemplative essay.

One further note: I never knew Audubon killed birds before painting or drawing them. I thought he just sat and observed and then painted. He has such a storied place in naturalist history. Dozens of places and parks are named in his honor. I must give Welty credit for the creative inspiration to bring a preacher, an outlaw, and a naturalist together to one story. And is it not jarring to realize that the only person who killed in the story was the naturalist, not the outlaw?

Good point John. And furthermore, after watching the shooting of the bird, the outlaw was content to go on his way without killing anyone.

The Petrified Man was a comedy classic, with the dialogue being the star. I could see, hear and smell the beauty shop. I can imagine women getting more from this story than men, but I'm sure a barber shop would have the same vibe, including the gossip!

I found Lilly Daw and Three Ladies not to be what I expected. I was expecting something along the lines of banter at the salon, but this story had grave undertones. It is a good story, though not completely understandable. It is a story of someone being committed and the name Daw, to me, had echoes of ward. And it seemed that Lilly was the ward of the three ladies for reasons not explained.

It did bring back three specific memories of mine when I saw the name Ellisville Institute for the Feeble Minded of Mississippi.

The first memory was driving past every day to and from work the Trenton State Psychiatric Hospital, which when it opened in the 1800s was called the New Jersey State Lunatics Asylum. The old names were very direct.

In college, I did a non medical internship at the New Jersey State Neuro Psychiatric Institute, which was a place mainly for people with cerebral palsy. It too dated from the 1800s.

And lastly there was Greystone Psychiatric Hospital, which at one time was the biggest hospital on earth. My grandmother was there for a number of years and I used to visit as a child. A large and intimidating place. It was so large and very innovative that when it opened in the 1880s, President Grant attended the opening.

So, this story, with someone ostensibly being committed, brought a flood of memories. As with a number of Welty’s stories, she is a quiet observer.

A Still Moment is wonderful story, probably the best of the collection from an academic POV but my favorite is yet to come. It is a complex story and it is worth thinking on how Welty has structured the story and styled the prose to point to the significance of the three men arriving to individually view this revelatory heron and its effect on them.

I have preferred Welty's stories in their original collections or to complete collections that retain the order of the first collections because I feel the stories often relate to one another. I am linking the Welty Wikipedia page which gives a listing of dates and magazine of first publication because I also think that is relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_...

For example the three stories from The Wide Net and other stories Collection were all published in 1942.

"A Still Moment" American Prefaces (Spring 1942)
"The Wide Net" Harper's Magazine (May 1942)
"Livvie" a.k.a. "Livvie Is Back" The Atlantic Monthly (November 1942)

Despite their radically different styles there are also some elements that are either similar or seem to be meant to contrast and when we look at them as all products of 1942, I think we get an expanded idea of Welty's talent and depth.

Looking forward to everyone's thoughts on "Moon Lake," published in 1949 by The Sewanee Review.

“The Hitch Hikers” and “Powerhouse” both had a music theme and they were just ok stories for me. Powerhouse seemed as though Welty had been to a live jazz performance and wrote about it. She has to throw in a murder in Hitch Hikers and a possible suicide(?) that isn’t resolved in Powerhouse.

I plan to read The Hitch Hikers today. Powerhouse was the first Welty story I ever read, so this will be a revisit for me. I do recall in some biographical information that she did, in fact, write Powerhouse after coming home from a jazz performance.

I did not much care for The Hitch-Hikers. The characters seemed one dimensional — it was difficult to ascertain much about Tom Harris other than he was a traveling salesman who seemed to know every soul in a town he was passing through. Perhaps that was the point, but I found things too contrived. And that included not only the murder itself but a party seemingly within hours of it.

Welty is a master of dialogue, though it can pose challenges to the reader. This is not a bad thing necessarily, but you have to be alert to who is saying what in order to understand a story. Welty reveals theme and plot mostly through dialogue.

On to Powerhouse now. My first recollection of this story was reading it in college. It was included in a writing class textbook as an example of a high quality short story. I recall it with Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily and Cheever’s The Swimmer, which are certainly great company.

When at junior college and at university, a number of my literature professors were graduates of two prestigious universities of the South--LSU and Chapel Hill. They attended university at time when the Southern Gothic writers were the contemporary writers of the South. I was blessed.

My one of main professors was in literary love with Eudora Welty. Due to my admiration for my professor and later due to my living in Jackson, I too fell in literary love with Welty and read everything she wrote--or tried to--even news articles in women's magazines.

"The Wide Net" is a Natchez River reimagination of a quest with Virgil who keeps the quest moving along. How that Natchez River lived in the imagination of Welty. Place matters. Welty shows us again and again.

Diane wrote: "John, I just read Old Mr. Marblehead, shades of The Twilight Zone. It's more common than you might think. I once sat in a courtroom waiting for my small claims case to be called. I watched as 3! bi..."

Hadn't thought of The Twilight Zone, but that works as the horror could be that the town doesn't care. The Bird boy does not seem to care. I wonder if Mrs Marblehead or Mrs Bird care either. Neither wife seems to need postcards or letters from other towns.

John wrote: "I finished Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden. I sometimes find stories that are primarily conversations to be difficult to follow. But the back and forth was the perfect way to frame this story. A r..."

John, I agree that the way the story is told works because it helps the reader consider their own consciences about freak shows. Still today we seem to still have freak shows in the US at the Venice Beach Freak Show. Also Ripley's Believe It Or Not shows/museums. We still have our consciences to consider.

"A Worn Path"
What happens when the boy does not improve? What happens when Grandma starts to town but does not make it back home?
What happens if the boy dies, leaving Grandma alone?

We are not left with hope the the boy will get better, so we have lurking fear that this story will not end well.

As a brief aside to our reading, I was going through Eudora Welty, which is a book of essays about Welty’s work selected by Harold Bloom. He also includes his own essay and wrote that he believed The Burning is the best story Welty wrote. He really does not say why, though, and given that he greatly admires many of her other stories, it would be good to see why.

The Burning is contained in The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories and The Collected Stories. Eventually I will get to it and see why Bloom believed it was her best.