Ironweed, by William Kennedy is a literary ghost story. Francis Phelan, former third baseman for the Washington Senators, bums the streets and years of Depression-era Albany, N.Y. He is visited by the dead, those for whose deaths (in his mind, at least) he is responsible. I liked this description of Francis's mother, now in her grave:

[She] wove crosses from the dead dandelions and other deep-rooted weeds; careful to preserve their fullest length, she wove them while they were still in the green stage of death, then ate them with an insatiable revulsion.

The Modern Library edition of Eudora Welty's Selected Stories comprises the texts of her first two collections. "A Visit of Charity" is my favorite from the first collection, A Curtain of Green. It is a brief comic report of a visit by Campfire Girl Marian to a shut-in in order to earn merit points. She meets not one but two old women, each unique in her irascibility and decrepitude.

In The Wide Net, the stories take on a more dreamlike tone, and the centers of consciousness become more cloudy. For instance, "First Love" tells the story of Aaron Burr and Blennerhasset through the barely-comprehending, fond eyes of a twelve-year-old deaf mute. A small-town scandal in "Asphodel" is recalled by three nearly indistinguishable old maids.

The title story yields this zinger:

"She's a lot smarter than her cousin in Beula," said Virgil. "And especially Edna Earle, that never did get to be what you'd call a heavy thinker. Edna Earle could sit and ponder all day on how the little tail of the 'C' got through the 'L' in a Coca-Cola sign."

posted: 10:03:02 PM