2025 Short Story Jan-March: You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Short Stories > Likes and Comments

Quarter 1 short story read for January, February, and March is You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Short Stories by Alice Walker, whose birthday is February 9, 1944.

About the collection from GR: A natural evolution from the earlier, much-acclaimed collection In Love & Trouble, these fourteen provocative and often humorous stories show women oppressed but not defeated. These are hopeful stories about love, lust, fame, and cultural thievery, the delight of new lovers, and the rediscovery of old friends, affirmed even across self-imposed color lines.

A classic writer who is still with us today, Alice Walker has her own website: https://alicewalkersgarden.com/. Her most well-known title is The Color Purple, which is frequently challenged and banned across the decades, according to ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF): https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequently....

Americans Who Tell the Truth has a biography about her: https://americanswhotellthetruth.org/...

Find a recent interview with Alice Walker from February 2024 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2JzM... (NOTE: Cuba, Gaza, and other current topics are discussed.)

In July 2011 Alice Walker did a TedTalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4FW2...

I'll be joining in, probably in February or March.

I'll be joining as well, likely in February.

Same!

I finished this book a few days ago. I read it almost as a historical look at civil rights and racism in the 1960s. One story "Advancing Luna--and Ida B. Wells" was very autobiographical, based on Walker meeting a white girl named Luna in 1965 in Atlanta during a civil rights rally. The story is about how their relationship changes over the years and Walker's thoughts on (view spoiler)[black men and white women. (hide spoiler)]. I thought this story was powerful. Some stories are dated, but I found all of them fascinating.

Oh nice to hear, Kathy! I got my library ebook today and will start tomorrow

I hope you enjoy it, Jen.

I've read the first 3 stories so far. I can see Kathy's note about these as historical short fiction. I see a lot of reviewers love the first story but I thought each was even better than the last, as far as the first 3, which were Nineteen Fifty-Five, How Did I Get Away with Killing One of the Biggest Lawyers in the State? It Was Easy., and Elethia.

The first story was about an old blues musician and her relationship to an Elvis Presley-like character. I may not feel as strongly as many readers did because I recently read an excellent nonfiction book on blues women (Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis) and perhaps in light of that recent in-depth look at blues women, this story felt shallow. I was happy to encounter the challenging and complicated nature of the next 2 stories. With that said, so far, I find them easy and fast reads. It's the themes that are complicated and challenging. Racism in the US plus complex psychology of the narrators... The prose is not complicated. It is, so far, a lot of African American Vernacular English though. I think some people feel something is lost when this type of work is translated to their preferred non-English reading language, so... I'm sorry if that poses a barrier in our international group we have here...

I just found this thread, and I've started reading this. It's funny I was looking at this book and then Jen mentioned it in another thread, hi Jen, and now have it.

Hi Anisha, glad you are joining the discussion :) I'd love to hear thoughts from other readers. I finished this the other night.

Oh, re: my previous note on AAV English, it was really only the first 3 stories.

With only foggy memories of The Color Purple, read and watched in high school in the 90s, this collection by Walker kind of surprised me. I found her work challenging but mostly in a good way and rather experimental at times. She deals with complex issues and her stories tend to lack feelgood-ness and resolution. I did appreciate the humor in The Lover and the more positive and warm ending in the last story. These offered balance in an otherwise challenging and provocative book. I tend toward mixed feelings about this collection and am still contemplating it- also why I'd really welcome more POVs here in the thread!

I was impressed with this collection. I agree these weren't feel-good stories, but they provided a view of the times from a viewpoint that was out of my experience.

I'm really enjoying these, very different from Color Purple. I've been wanting to read more of Walker's fiction and am pleased to start with this.

I've read the first 6, Petunias, so much said in few words. In fact, they are all like that in how each one is saying something - and I think there's a lot going on in each one and will have to probably read it several times.

Kathy wrote: "I was impressed with this collection. I agree these weren't feel-good stories, but they provided a view of the times from a viewpoint that was out of my experience."

I'm glad this one is a hit for you two :) I definitely find a lot of strengths in it too. I just know I felt at odds at times and I'm having trouble pinpointing why.

I do share your experience, Kathy. I felt like I got a good view into the era of its publication- late 60s/early 70s, and I thought it especially gave a sense of the women's movement at that time. I appreciate writing that shows how social movements looked in the past. I think normally I would gain such insight via nonfiction so this book is perhaps unique that way.

I agree with you too, Anisha, as far as how successful she is in this short story format. I thought characters and their lives felt really vivid and real and fleshed out. I love that they're flawed and complex and messy.

Jen wrote: "I agree with you too, Anisha, as far as how successful she is in this short story format. I thought characters and their lives felt really vivid and real and fleshed out. I love that they're flawed and complex and messy."

So many wonderful descriptions, and I'm also getting a nonfiction vibe that made me wonder if Ida B Wells is a real person, and she is,

You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories (Alice Walker) 📖 ✅ 4.5* here's my review , I enjoyed reading these and would read more from Alice Walker.

I have now read two other books by Alice Walker, finishing the second one a few day's back, I didn't enjoy them as much and I'm not sure what to make of them and will read this collection of shorts again.

I've also lined up for this year In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

PS Regarding good women and short stories, Katharine Mansfield produced some good ones.

Bernard wrote: "PS Regarding good women and short stories, Katharine Mansfield produced some good ones."

Yea I'm curious about her. Apparently a collection of hers was the chosen group read in a recent year so you might find discussion on that archived here somewhere, if you're interested.

Bernard wrote: "PS Regarding good women and short stories, Katharine Mansfield produced some good ones."

Jen is correct! We read a title by Mansfield a few years ago, I believe it was Garden Party and Other Stories. You will find it in our archived short story discussions.

Anisha Inkspill wrote: "I've also lined up for this year In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose"

Anisha, I'm looking back at this thread and love hearing that you apparently "discovered" Alice Walker thanks to our group read. Or at least dived more into her works. That's fantastic.

Samantha wrote: "Anisha, I'm looking back at this thread and love hearing that you apparently "discovered" Alice Walker thanks to our group read. Or at least dived more into her works. That's fantastic."

I still haven't got around to the other two books but I have them so who knows with a couple of months+ left to the end of the year.

but I read this collection of shorts again for the second time this year, and I enjoyed them all over again.