Writes of Passage: Coming-of-Age Stories and Memoirs from The Hudson Review
Coming-of-age is the theme that informs this collection of 31 pieces—21 short stories and 10 memoirs—from the Hudson Review. The impetus for the anthology was the magazine’s initiation of a well-received Writers in the School Program at two Harlem high schools. According to editor Deitz, the pieces with which the students most closely identified provide the nucleus for this collection; however, other of the contents have been selected from the past 25 years of the prestigious literary quarterly. Many of the writers represented are emerging voices, but established talents like William Trevor, Wendell Berry, Steven Millhauser, and Tennessee Williams are also heard from. Regardless of reputation, almost all focus on the moment of epiphany, after which—as Kermit Moyer writes in Learning to Smoke—nothing will ever be the same. Though well intentioned, this collection has a whiff of the didactic and a prevailing earnestness that some younger readers may find off-putting. Its many artful individual selections, however, will offer satisfactions and revelations to readers of all ages. --Michael Cart