Showing 1 - 2 of 2 annotations in the genre "Collection (Novellas)"

Epiphany

Sams, Ferrol

Last Updated: May-08-2006
Annotated by:
Coulehan, Jack

Primary Category: Literature / Fiction

Genre: Collection (Novellas)

Summary:

Three novellas by a master storyteller. For the title story, see the separate entry in this database (Epiphany). "Harmony Ain't Easy" is a tale in which Dr. and Mrs. Sams (he retains his own name here) get stranded when their car is disabled on a country road, thanks to Dr. Sams's bull-headedness. After a warmly humorous series of reverses, they are finally saved.

In the last story, "Relative and Absolute," aged Mr. McEachern is approached by three high school students who want to interview him for their oral history project. They ask him questions about living conditions and race relations in their county when he was young. During the series of interviews, as he tells them anecdote after anecdote heavy with homey wisdom, the old man and the adolescents learn to like and respect each other.

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Three Lives

Stein, Gertrude

Last Updated: Jul-05-1998
Annotated by:
Coulehan, Jack

Primary Category: Literature / Fiction

Genre: Collection (Novellas)

Summary:

This first published work of fiction by Gertrude Stein includes two stories, "The Good Anna" (71 pp.) and "The Gentle Lena" (40 pp.); and a novella, "Melanctha" (151 pp.) Each one is a psychological portrait of the named protagonist. All three are members of the lower socioeconomic stratum of the fictional town of Bridgepoint.

"The Good Anna" tells the story of a German immigrant who kept house for Miss Mathilda. Anna was honest, steadfast, and loyal as the day is long, but she was also stern and difficult to deal with. Anna's special friend was Mrs. Lehntman, the romance of her life. After Miss Mathilda moved to a far country, Anna took in boarders for a living, didn't make much money, and after a while died. "The Gentle Lena" is the story of another German servant girl who married unhappily and died shortly after the birth of her fourth child.

"Melanctha" is an extended portrait of Melanctha Herbert, a mulatto woman, and her unhappy love affair with Dr. Jeff Campbell, the doctor who took care of Melanctha's mother during her final illness. Much of the novella consists of protracted conversations between Melanctha and Jeff and extensive descriptions of their respective mental states.

Eventually the two lovers drifted apart. Melanctha took up with Jem Richards, "who always had to know what it was to have true wisdom." But that relationship didn't work out either. Melanctha became depressed and considered suicide. After she recovered from depression, she developed consumption and died.

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