At Least I had Time to Read...

I mentioned Hubs' and I were sick lately; several days I couldn't go to work. But when I felt like it, I read and finished a book of 2 novellas and a dozen short stories by Robert Penn Warren. Likely, by now he is best remembered for his novel, "All the King's Men", thought to be based on the career of populist polititcian Huey Long. The collection I read was called "The Circus in the Attic", also the title of one of the novellas.

The writing is excellent and smooth; the feel is similar to, but not as engaging, imo, as a good ol' Faulkner book.  Still.... My favorite story was a gem called "Backberry Winter"; it could be called a horror story
since there is a sense of dread thru the story of a cold day in June, just after a bad storm; out of nowhere walks "Evil" in the form of a strange vagrant who visits a prosperous Tennessee farm in the early part of the 20th century, looking for a handout.

The book may be difficult to locate; the edition I read was published in 1962; the material was written between 1931-46, referring to areas in Tennessee, Kentucky, Western Illinois, etc. Some language is certainly not PC! But the author's ability with description let's us feel and understand what is was like to get around in a pre-automobile world, for example.