While Mississippians can usually name the stats for their local sports team or remember the recipe for their family’s favorite home-cooked meal with pride, many have never read works by some of the most influential Mississippi authors. From Welty to Ward, our state boasts many writers who capture both the charms and complications of the state with settings like a beauty shop, Piggly Wiggly or post office.
For those who want to learn more about Mississippi’s history or find a relatable character in their next read, check out some short stories by Mississippi authors like the ones listed below. In today’s busy world, you do not have to devote your life to an entire novel to read something about your “own little postage stamp of native soil,” as Faulkner says.
Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.” and “A Worn Path”
In Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.,” narrator Sister describes the familial turmoil that drove her to relocate to the local post office in her sassy, sulky tone. Angry at her sister Stella-Ronda, Sister rages against the family that she considers against her, but since readers only have Sister’s side of the first-person story, they never know if they can trust Sister not to exaggerate. Those who have endured family arguments at the dinner table might relate to Sister more than they care to admit. Regardless, Welty’s Sister is sure to entertain.
If “Why I Live at the P.O.” exposes a family’s weaknesses as family members fuss and fume, Welty’s “A Worn Path” celebrates the strength of a family member’s love. Central character Phoenix Jackson, an old, small African-American grandmother, braves a long journey to retrieve medicine for her little grandson despite all the odds. One of Welty’s most beloved stories, “A Worn Path,” reveals the struggles of poverty and alienation but also highlights beautiful, sacrificial love in the midst of those struggles.
Richard Wright’s “Down by the Riverside”
Richard Wright sets his collection of four stories called “Uncle Tom’s Children” in the American South in the Jim Crow Era, and he unapologetically depicts racism’s crippling effects on the lives of his African-American characters. One of these stories, especially “Down by the Riverside,” explores the idea that people who hate can endanger others as much as a natural disaster like a flood. As the main character Mann seeks to rescue his family from a flood and take his pregnant wife to the hospital in a stolen boat, he encounters people who care more about the boat and the color of his skin than the safety of him and his family.
Richard Wright is attributed the aphorism: “All literature is protest.” People who read his “protests” confront the atrocities of the past and their obligation not to forget but to make change in the present.
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”
This Southern gothic short story set in Faulkner’s fictional county Yoknapatawpha, based off Mississippi’s Lafayette County, tells the haunting story of Miss Emily Grierson’s thwarted love. Narrated by a “collective we,” the story mimics small-town gossip as the entire community becomes engrossed by but suspicious of Miss Emily after her death. Like many of Faulkner’s works, the story explores the tension between the ideals of the Old South and New South. For those who like to find themselves on the edge of their seats as they read, this story certainly mystifies. Someone paints china. Someone buys poison. Someone does not pay taxes. Read to find out who and why.
Jesmyn Ward’s “Cattle Haul”
In this short story, Ward’s narrator, Reese, undertakes a job transporting cattle in under forty-eight hours, weaving together his past memories of his grandmama and love interest Tanisha, struggles with sleep deprivation and substance abuse in the present and his fading dreams for the future. Ward does not shy away from mature content or language. Instead, she presents this man as burdened by his addiction and position in life, dependent on his father to supply him drugs and stuck in both an occupation and cycle of dysfunctional relationships that he cannot escape.
While set in Texas, the story makes multiple references to the cows that come from Mississippi. The Mississippi author remains deeply connected to her roots. For those who want to read more of Ward’s works, she sets many of her longer novels, like “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” “Salvage the Bones” and “Where the Line Bleeds” in fictional towns in Mississippi.
Whether you have lived in Mississippi for your entire life or find yourself in the state for the first time for college, check out the short stories of some of the state’s most celebrated authors. While they do not take up many pages or take much time to read, these stories will give you the opportunity to grapple with your responsibility to remember the stories of the past. You will also wrestle with how living in Mississippi and the South as a whole, even temporarily, shapes your story.
