Welty is one of those writers where every story I've seen of hers, in collegiate fiction anthologies, came from this, her first book. And while those excerpted stories are great, you can also already see why her literary standing would sort of peter out. Unlike other older writers I've read recently, the bulk of this feels very much of its time, it doesn't quite transcend it. Maybe it's the tendency towards overwrought description, maybe it's the "young writer" character choices: old people, deaf mutes, freaks, slow people, hitchhikers, traveling salesmen, and adolescents, all similarly "flat"; maybe it's the overreliance on narrative obliqueness, an overreliance on simile—honestly, I can't pinpoint why it all feels so dusty to me. Stories that feel more like character sketches? That end with unexplained deaths? Too many sensitive characters who have unusually vivid daydreams? Comedy that's a tad too broad and drama that's a tad too serious? Pulp irony that might be nothing more than actual pulp? Before TV, there used to be a divide between "pop short stories" and "serious literature," and this kind of feels like it's trying to bridge that divide—it's not "Criminal Minds" and it's not "The Wire", it's more like "NYPD Blue". And who wants to watch NYPD Blue over the other two? The "complete trash" show and the "prestige serial" show are both great. Two stars.