Note for 20th-century linguistics historians: in his introduction to this issue of Penguin New Writing John Lehmann remarks on the number of neologisms that have occurred in the tiny lifetime of the magazine. ‘The last ten years have been an express formative period in the English language, new words, new expressions have become acclimatized in … Continue reading Penguin New Writing 36: into 1949
Category: Eudora Welty
Read the novel before you judge it: Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman
When the hoo-hah about Go Set A Watchman erupted a few weeks ago, I was diffident, since I haven’t read To Kill A Mockingbird in about thirty years (and I don't think I've seen the film), and though my memory of Mockingbird was very positive, I had no particular desire to read it again. Instead, I was … Continue reading Read the novel before you judge it: Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman
The horrible stepmother in The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty
In this last script from the appalling fictional women podcasts, I’m in New Orleans, watching an old man die. Shortly after that, I’m in Mississippi, watching his daughter Laurel empty the private room where her dead mother’s things were kept in her childhood home, before her appalling step-mother sells the house with everything in it that Laurel … Continue reading The horrible stepmother in The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty
Kate Macdonald 