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.

Commentary

The title story is by far the strongest as literature (whatever that means), although all three are enjoyable to read. "Relative and Absolute" gives us a wise and entertaining perspective on issues like poverty, discrimination, segregation, and forced integration in the South; and hypocrisy in the North. The story allows Dr. Sams to share with us some of the stories he probably heard when he was young.

Publisher

Penguin

Place Published

New York

Edition

1995

Page Count

301