Southern Women's Writing, Colonial to Contemporary
In Southern Women's Writing, editors Weaks (English, Rockford Coll.) and Perry (English, Westminster Coll.) have compiled an exceptional collection of writings by women who have lived and are living in the American South. Both black and white writers are represented and all share, and are divided by, a common heritage of racism, gender bias, and social stratification. Drawing on letters, journal entries, essays, poems, and fictional pieces, the compilers trace the evolution of the Southern feminine point of view from the early 18th century to the late 20th century. The first writer featured, Eliza Lucas Pinckney, was born in 1772, and, the last, Leigh Allison Wilson,  in 1959. Because of its richness and accessibility, the anthology will probably become a standard text in college courses in American Southern literature and women's studies, making it essential for all academic libraries and enthusiastically recommended for all others. Downhome contains 21 previously published short stories by contemporary Southern female writers. Eight of the writers are included in the Weaks-Perry anthology-Katherine Anne Porter, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Doris Betts, Bobbie Ann Mason, Alice Walker, and Ellen Gilchrist-but only one selection, Bobbie Ann Mason's "Shiloh," appears in both books. Brief paragraphs at the end of the book identify the authors, though editor Mee (fiction, NYU) strains to make her points about a "shared legacy" and "distinctive language." The stories trace the life cycle from "Growing Up" to "The Pleasures and Miseries of Marriage" to "Passing On." Although this is a good group of stories, as a whole the collection is not unique and not as rigorously researched as Southern Women's Writing. Recommended for popular literature collections in libraries lacking the writers covered.Carol A. McAllister, Coll. of William and Mary Lib., Williamsburg, Va.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.