Collected Stories of Jessamyn West

During her long, distinguished career, Jessamyn West had an enduring love affair with the short story. Her first novel, the ever-popular The Friendly Persuasion, was conceived as short stories. Among her nineteen books, Love, Death, and the Ladies’ Drill Team and Crimson Ramblers of the World, Farewell were collections of her independent stories. They, with the addition of eight others never before assembled, make up the thirty-six stories in this vibrant, compelling volume. The variety is breathtaking: a tale of suspense, a romantic idyll, a touch of the supernatural, a young man’s pursuit of a lost love, a glorious awakening in the wilderness, a chilling portrait of sexual torment, the joys and agonies of the young—these are the merest clues to the content. Comedy mingles with tragedy, tenderness with irony. The most ordinary human being is seen as remarkable. And daily existence is touched with magic. Jessamyn West rings changes in time, presents a startling sweep of personalities and moods. Her themes span a breadth of experience from the bite of misery to the balm of delight. Her achievement, taken totally, is a spectrum of living, a haunting, rewarding experience that attests to her consummate skill and extraordinary vision of the worlds before us and within us.