Civil to Strangers and Other Writings - Softcover

Even the most loyal Pym reader may approach this collection of still more unpublished writings with trepidation. But fans will find much to enjoy in this book, which includes one complete novel, segments of three unfinished works and four short stories. The main interest, however, is of a valedictory and biographical nature: we are reminded that Pym's less skilled early writings foreshadowed a fine career (of everything here only two stories are from the postwar period). There is a certain sadness in reading in book form the last by so intelligent and subtle a writer, whose work, especially on the immature evidence here, deepened in emotional intensity through the years; the final story in the book, Across a Crowded Room, published in the New Yorker in 1979, is both the briefest and most luminous of the writing here. Completists can take note, as editor Holt does, of all the references to works in progress in Pym's diaries, and be satisfied with the fuller picture of the writer at work that emerges from these slight but always pleasurable pieces. "Finding a Voice," a radio talk Pym gave in 1978, aptly concludes this collection and seems to offer readers warm thanks and a heartfelt goodbye.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The latest posthumous Pym is a collection of four early novels and four stories written from the late 1930s to the 1970s. Pym followers will recognize many of the excellent women, vicars, and curates who figure prominently in later novels. As always, she pokes gentle fun at English village life, spinsters, and handsome, artistic men with feet of pleasantly middle-class clay. Though Pym is apparently not easy with the short story format, the stories are delightful. A spy novel is surprisingly entertaining, the radio talk she gave on the BBC quite appealing. This is not Pym at her zenith, but even her second best was awfully good. For any library where she has a following. Mary K. Prokop, CEL Regional Lib., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.