The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, and: The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe (review)

thologies, in regional journals such as Crestview Review and Appalachian Heritage, and have been collected, along with works by Mona Walton Helper, in Our Separate Days, a 1990 Rowan Mountain Press release. She is a frequent lecturer and instructor in this region , a Kentucky Book Fair veteran, and former president of the Appalachian Writers Association. -Garry Barker The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe. Edited by Francis Skipp. Foreword by James Dickey. Macmillan Publishing Company, Collier Books, 1989. 621 pages. Hardback: $27.50. Paper: $12.95. The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by C. Hugh Holman. Macmillan: Hudson River Editions. 323 pages. $25.00. It is a popular notion, even a hard-held opinion by Thomas Wolfe's most enthusiastic admirers, that the Asheville author could not write short fiction. Paradoxically , in the face of criticism that he could not master, could not submit to the discipline of short fiction, some of Wolfe's best work exists in the short novel of between 15,000 and 40,000 words and the short story. Indeed, in the years between 1929 when Look Homeward , Angel was published and 1935 when Of Time and the River appeared, Wolfe's reputation was sustained and enriched by his short novels and short stories. These two collections not only provide readers opportunities to enjoy the excellences of some of Wolfe's short fiction but demonstrate a craftsmanship he sometimes seemed to lack in the long books. In addition, they suggest that a major criticism or perhaps North Carolina's most famous author bears examination. The fifty-eight stories in Skipp's collection is the most comprehensive collection of Thomas Wolfe's short stories to date. Thirty-five of these stories have never been collected. From "An Angel on the Porch," first published in 1929 to "The Spanish Letter," never before published in a magazine or book, they demonstrate not only the depth and diversity of Thomas Wolfe's talent but the mastery, at his best, he displayed in the genre of the short story. The short stories span the breadth of Wolfe's career from the uninhibited young writer meticulously describing the enchanting birth of spring in "The Train and the City," to the mature, sober account of a terrible lynching in "The Child by Tiger." What Scott Fitzgerald called "the more valuable parts of Tom . . . those moments when his lyricism was best combined with his powers of observation" are in the magnificent and haunting reverie "The Four Lost Men," Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and Hayes, four presidents of his father's time, all veterans of the Civil War. In addition, since many of Wolfe's stories were later incorporated into larger works put together by an editor unfamiliar with working with him after Wolfe's death, editor Francis Skipp has tried to present the stories "for better or for worse exactly as Wolfe intended them to be read." For the story "The Lost Boy," one of the best things Wolfe ever wrote, it is definitely "for the better." Skipp follows the November 1937 Redbook magazine text rather than the altered text that appears in The Hills Beyond, posthumously published in 1941. The short story collection represents Wolfe at his best: his magnificent sense of the language, his almost total sensual recall, his exuberance and on occasion, his control over highly complex material . Generally, the stories are strong in their sense or time and place and remarkably attuned to character, scene, 66 and social context. The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe is an important book to have in print not only for the five novels but for the introduction and notes of the late C. Hugh Holman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of the most perceptive readers of Thomas Wolfe, Holman has contributed richly to critical commentary on Wolfe's work. His choice of the five novels to include in this collection and his introduction and notes are astute. Each of the novellas illustrate in one way or another Wolfe's consummate craftsmanship, his mastery of the form of short fiction, and his awareness of what he was doing. Holman includes A Portrait of Bascom Hawke...