Southern fiction
Post-World War II Southern writers inherited Faulkner’s rich legacy. Three women—Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson McCullers, specialists in the grotesque—contributed greatly to Southern fiction. O’Connor, writing as a Roman Catholic in the Protestant South, created a high comedy of moral incongruity in her incomparable short stories. Welty, always a brilliant stylist, first came to prominence with her collections of short fiction A Curtain of Green (1941) and The Wide Net, and Other Stories (1943). Her career culminated with a large family novel, Losing Battles (1970), and a fine novella, The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), which was awarded the 1973 Pulitzer Prize. McCullers is best remembered for her first book, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), an intricate gothic novel set in a small town in the Deep South. She also published Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), The Member of the Wedding (1946), and The Ballad of the Sad Café (1951), all later adapted to the stage or screen. Other fine storytellers in the Southern tradition include Elizabeth Spencer, whose short fiction was collected in The Southern Woman (2001), and Reynolds Price, whose best novels were A Long and Happy Life (1961) and Kate Vaiden (1986). Initially known for his lyrical portraits of Southern eccentrics (Other Voices, Other Rooms [1948]), Truman Capote later published In Cold Blood (1965), a cold but impressive piece of documentary realism that contributed, along with the work of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer, to the emergence of a “new journalism” that used many of the techniques of fiction.
William Styron’s overripe first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), clearly revealed the influence of Faulkner. In two controversial later works, Styron fictionalized the dark side of modern history: The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) depicted an antebellum slave revolt, and Sophie’s Choice (1979) unsuccessfully sought to capture the full horror of the Holocaust. Inspired by Faulkner and Mark Twain, William Humphrey wrote two powerful novels set in Texas, Home from the Hill (1958) and The Ordways (1965). The Moviegoer (1961) and The Last Gentleman (1966) established Walker Percy as an important voice in Southern fiction. Their musing philosophical style broke sharply with the Southern gothic tradition and influenced later writers such as Richard Ford in The Sportswriter (1986) and its moving sequel, Independence Day (1995). Equally impressive were the novels and stories of Peter Taylor, an impeccable Social Realist, raconteur, and genial novelist of manners who recalled a bygone world in works such as The Old Forest (1985) and A Summons to Memphis (1986).