The Gray In Between Book

What better writer to read for Short Story Month (May, 2017) than William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry. During his short life, he wrote nearly 600 short stories!

Porter was born in Greensboro, NC, on September 11, 1862, died in NYC on June 5, 1910 from cirrhosis of the liver, and was then buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, NC. While visiting Asheville this week, we became aware of how much Asheville reveres its famous state authors, among them O. Henry--they've even named a street after him. (And no, the Oh Henry! candy bar is NOT named for him, in case you were wondering, as I was.)

Porter left his home state for Texas where things quickly went wrong for him and he was sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary for bank embezzlement. While incarcerated, he began to write and sell short stories as a means of support for his daughter--using a pen name so no one would know he was in jail. He was released for good behavior after three years and moved to NYC, where in 1903, he was hired by New York World to write a short story a week for their Sunday magazine--stories that would reflect life in urban and rural America.

I picked up a copy of this small collection of twenty-six of his best short stories in a used bookstore in the historic Grove Arcade in Asheville. They perfectly illustrate his knack for characterization, irony and wit. Many are still familiar from having read them in school but many more were refreshingly new to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the look at American life in the early 1900s. Some things, like human nature, never change.