Walk In The Moon Shadows by Jesse Stuart, 1955
The magic trick:
Creating a self-enclosed world of rural Kentucky
I really need to read more Jesse Stuart. This is only the second story of his I’ve read – the first was “Dawn Of Remembered Spring” – and both have done a wonderful job of recreating a picture of his rural Kentucky childhood. It isn’t with fancy words or lengthy paragraphs of description. I think it’s in the lack of noise. There really is no distraction within the writing or the story itself. The characters express themselves with an earnestness and honesty that is very appealing. There is no irony here. Their feelings seem tied to exactly what we see in the story, creating that self-enclosed rural world. It’s a world that as a reader I want to return to. And that’s quite a trick on Stuart’s part.
The selection:
Short Story Magic Tricks 