Gather Miss Muriel And Other Stories Authored By Ann Petry Accessible In Document

stories about the devastations of oppression and prejudice, Some are simply heartbreakingly scintillating i, e. , "Like a Winding Sheet". Petry's stories are like entire novels wrapped up in little packages, Her range of narrative voicethat of child and adult, man and womenis solid, This is a wonderful collection of short stories by Ann Petry, whom I had yet to read or hear of before this, Her book, The Street was a bestseller in its time, and I can't wait to get my hand on a copy,

This collection was a nice blend of authors and style Octavia Butler, Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor and Bradbury were a few who came to mind and yet Petry evaded me until now.
I highly recommend this collection to anyone who is a fan of the aforementioned authors and their style of writing about a town in general via vignettes of it's inhabitants.


The first few stories were about a Black family of pharmacists in a predominantly white vacation town, and the rest seemed to branch out from there, circa's.
A couple of my favorites include Mother Africa, the title story, Mis Muriel , and The Bones of Louella Brown, which were all a little tongue in cheek imo.


Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ecopy via Netgalley, Great. The stories about Wheeling paint great pictures of life as a minority in a small town, And as the stories move toward more urban settings, there are stories that carry the reader from sympathy into empathy, Powerful stuff. More on this, but ain't nothing changed,

ReadAnnPetry I read this for book club, and it has turned into one of the most powerful reads of the year for me, Each story completely envelopes you whether it is apage or apage short story, They are stories of black life in America, and almost every one of them includes a white character who influences or adds context to the story, The protagonists are from almost every class middle class, lower class, working class and walk of life a pharmacist, a young child, an artist, a junk dealer, a college professor and do something that many stories of the time never accomplished: offering a multifaceted view into black life in America.
It's an important set of stories to read, and many could sadly be set in America today, This book contained several stories about black people and how they had to contend with prejudice in their lives, It makes you wonder why any person of color, no matter who they are should be treated differently, We are all God's children after all,

Recieved this book through the Goodreads giveaway, Thank you Ms. Petry for your stories. There are those books that seem doomed to be forgotten, and then they go out of print, This unfortunate fate has befallen Ann Petrys most excellent collection of short stories, Petrys literary reputation will rest upon her powerful and fine naturalist novel The Street, but Miss Muriel and Other Stories might possibly be her best work, Originally published in, the book features a set of loosely linked stories about AfricanAmerican characters variously struggling to find and/or maintain community, I used to teach her story “The New Mirror” in a course on place and space in AfAm literature, The story is astonishing in its ability to present and bypass a simplistic dichotomy of blackwhite racial relations, She understands that racial relations in the US have always been much murkier and more complex, In class I argued that Petry presents a “brown” identity, a kind of third term articulation for the beauty of brown skin, a love for the kind of nurturing environment that theyear old narrators family provides.
In US history, this became the “black is beautiful” mantra, That has always lacked subtlety of what Petry was crafting nearly thirty years earlier, It is that kind of prescience that makes Petry and this collection of stories a mustread, Beg, borrow, or steal yourself a copy, Read so far:

Miss Muriel
The new mirror
Has anybody seen Miss Dora Dean
The migraine workers
Mother Africa
The bones of Louella Brown
Olaf and his girl friend
Like a winding sheet
The witness
Solo on the drums
The necessary knocking on the door
In darkness and confusion
Doby's gone

On Saturday the siren sounds at noon Every story is immersing the reader into the life of black american life.
This collection of stories by the great Ann

Petry was first published inand six other times until, Tomorrow it will be published again and I would say that speaks volumes, Ann Petry is a genius in how she is able to write about the black experience, Perrys writing is encompasses the perspective of each character, The book begins with a few stories each telling of a young girl and her family living in an all white neighborhood, Then all the other ones are of different characters, but in all the tales, each character is simply living, struggling and surviving,
Although these stories were written overyears ago, they are very much prevalent today, In Mother Africa, a man mourns the loss of his wife and child during childbirth, He wonders had they not been a black family from Harlem, would they have survived, A concern many still have today,
As you read each story, you not only see in your mind but a you also feel with your soul, the depths of each character, Why in the world did I wait so long to read Petry's short stories The Street is one of my favorite, most harrowing, novels of all time.
Her short stories are no different, My favorites in this collection are not what most reviewers talk about"Mother Africa" was amazing, "Miss Muriel" was beautiful. I've never be able to forget the sick, sad feeling driving "The Witness" and "Doby's Gone, " All are gems, in truth, what an interesting collection of tales

I really dont like short stories but these were detailed enough to get the gist of the characters and become involved in their drama.
The writer does an excellent job of engaging the reader even though I hated several of the stories due to racism and brutality, Consider publication is overyears the tales are still relevant in the good old US of America! What a fabulous read, It starts off with the only black family living in Wheeling, NY who owed a drug store, There name is Layen. Aunt Sophronia comes to live with them, She is young, beautiful like an Egyptian Queen, and a recent graduate of a druggiest school, In today's term this would be a pharmasicts, Old Mr. Bemish falls in love with here, He is an old white man who repairs shoes, He loves her so much he kneels down and proposes marriage and clicked his heels three time, He is run out of town in one night with all is worldly goods by Chink Johnson and Uncle Dottle, Completely hilarious.

The story of the black statue given to a black junk man who thinks the statue is stating to come alive, He sees her curves and breast of metal in the full moon, He shaves and gets a hair cut for the first time in twentyfive years because of her, Then he finds out about the black metal,


Pink and William son Sam is in the army stationed in Georgia, He has stopped writing to them, They do not know why, Sam is from New York, Black's are treated differently down south, They find out why and a riot pursues,

Love can carry you from Barbados to New York, Only the obeah can carry them back to Barbados, Who can tell the difference between black bones and white bones Apparently the Beford Abbey cannot a private chapel in Massachusetts dedicated to the arisocrate family of Boston.


Quotes:

In fact, there is a family rule that we must walk any distance under three miles,

Ole Aunt Frankie
Black as tar
Tried to get to heaven
In a 'lectric car,
Car got stalled in an underpass,
Threw Aunt Frankie right on her ass,

Almost as though she thought he was a fool for working so hard,

When Governor Beford read the Boston Record, he promptly called Whiffle and Peabody on the telephone and cursed them with such violence that Young Whiffle and Old Peabody grew visibly older and grayer as they listened to him.
Outstanding books of short stories that I am very glad I was able to read, There are a variety of short stories in this book and I must say they all are good, So good you do not want to stop reading, But, if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be "The Winding Sheet", Powerful This book may have been written a while ago, but the subject matter still resonates today, Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy of this priceless book in return for my honest review, This book should be required for all high school students, Miss Muriel and Other Stories is a collection of short stories that embody the Black Experience in America, The characters are not written as “tragically colored” or a living minstrel show and that is reason enough to love Mrs, Petrys writing. Much like the characters in The Street, they are portrayed as humanflawed to be sure because no one is perfect, but not evil, My personal favorite stories are Mother Africa for the perfect surprise ending, The Bones of Louella Browna truly haunting tale that should make one think twice of disrespecting people, The Witness amp The Necessary Knocking on the Door for its take on respectability politics and the what would you do question presented, In Darkness amp Confusion for capturing the rage of a people after repeated injustices.
I believe these stories are timeless because the topics covered are relevant and still occur today, Its a reminder that taking a step forward isnt always easy, there will be an obstacle or several to try to keep success, freedom, happiness an abstract feeling.
I selected this collection, mindful of Black History Month, This treasure ought to be shared far amp wide! Let me know how You enjoyed this amp the region in which you live we can watch beautiful storytelling spreading.

I live on Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Miami, Sioux, and Peoria lands Illinois, These are harsh, unforgiving stories that offer little hope, The ugliness has a purpose, but is never leavened, only punched down with bleakness, Makes for a slog of a read that leaves you depressed, Like life for a lot of people she's writing about, I read "The Bones of Louella Brown", one of thirteen stories in Ann Petry's "Miss Muriel and Other Stories", The Bedford Abbey was a private chapel which the prominent, wealthy Bedford family would utilize for their family weddings and funerals, The Bedfords had been buried at the Yew Tree Cemetery, so their remains were to be exhumed and reburied in the crypt in the chapel, A black laundress, Louella Brown, was also buried at the Yew Tree Cemetery, Louella's bones were brought to the funeral home for reburial at a black cemetery, Her bones and the bones of Elizabeth Bedford, the Countess of Castro got mixed up, Both skeletons were of the same height and build, and the two women had died in the same year, "People are saying it's some kind of trick, that we're proving there's no difference between the races, Oh, we're ruinedruinedruined" Young Whiffle, a mortician, moaned,

Ann Petry wrote an engaging story that makes an important point about segregation, The story is humorous on one level as people try to resolve the problem and Louella haunts the funeral home director, On another level, we can see the serious problems of racism and classism, I enjoyed Ann Petry's writing so I would like to read more stories in this collection, .