Ron Peters's Reviews > The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

“Why I Live at the P.O.” is hilarious. Overall, though, Welty didn’t do much for me. For my taste, as she got older her writing got better but her storytelling got worse. I’ve never been hot on Chekhovian, slice-of-life stories. In her many descriptions of the landscape of the South, she can take on a touch of Ray Bradbury’s poetic flow. Like his, also, her stories sometimes take on a mythological, magical tone. The thing that struck me was her well-observed Southern characters. Thinking, imagining, and feeling her way into so many and varied lives – every sort you can imagine and some you couldn’t – is quite a feat.