Miss Muriel and Other Stories

By Ann Petry

Book Overview

"Petry is the writer we have been waiting for; hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose." -- Tayari Jones, New York Times Book Review From the author of the bestselling novel The Street, comes a powerful collection of stories that captures a remarkably diverse panorama of African American experience in the 1950s and 1960s. A small-town pharmacist's decision to take a day off leads his wife to an agonizing encounter with the police. A retired Black college professor teaching at a predominately white high school is kidnapped and forced to witness an unthinkable horror. A young Black girl watches her aunt's suitors threaten her family's wellbeing, with repercussions that reverberate for decades. Ann Petry wrote these and the other extraordinary stories in this collection over half a century ago, but the problems they interrogate still exist today, incisively uncovering the consequences of America's pervasive racism, while telling timeless stories of everyday lives, of aspiration, frustration, and love. Miss Muriel and Other Stories is "a delicate, unflinching probe into African-American existence" (Boston Globe) from one of the most gifted writers of the twentieth century. Originally published between 1945 and 1971, Petry's stories are "a delicate, unflinching probe into African-American existence" (Boston Globe) and an assertion of her status as one of the most gifted writers of the twentieth century. "I've recently had my brain re-wired by Ann Petry, and it's that exhilarating feeling of falling in love with one of your lifetime writers for the first time." --Brandon Tyler

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0063260174
• ISBN13: 9780063260177
• Release Date: January 2023
• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Remarkable Storytelling

The New Mirror was my favorite. The `dun, dun, dun' start and the ending was absolutely exceptional! To start and end the way this one did, which included thought-provoking messages, none more stirring than`our folks' gracefully (and I point this out respectfully) learning to live a lie, truly is to be commended. Here's where I, too, learned both the rewards and sacrifices of retaining dignity. Other stories that resonated were The Migraine Workers, Mother Africa, and The Necessary Knocking on the Door. Miss Muriel (the short story, that being) initially threw me for a loop... until I got to the end... as was the case for all the stories, where each time I was left with the "wow" factor. The descriptiveness of the characters and potent settings were handled so skillfully quiet that there is no denying Miss Muriel and other stories are nothing short of "Phenomenal!"