There's a reason this novel/short story cycle is largely forgotten, and I think it's due to its avant garde nature—Ever hear of the Russian Formalists? One of their theories was that art should make the familiar, unfamiliar, so you can look at the familiar again with fresh, naive eyes. Welty does this CONSTANTLY: off-center metaphors, angular clauses, time shifts, prismatic perspectives, flights of fancy, a flood of characters, description that teeters into the bizarre—presumably to make this story of one generation of neighbors in a small southern town seem grand, even as nothing extraordinary ever really happens. Now don't get me wrong, I think Welty is a remarkably skilled writer, and she pulls off the avant garde quite well, in the technical sense. It's just fucking irritating: even as I found some of the characters very affecting (the best relationship is between a piano teacher and her student) I simply couldn't wait to finish this god damn book; in fact, that it's all somewhat difficult to process made that speedy desire all the more frustrating. That all that is at service to a story, seemingly, about people who feel a desperate need to go somewhere but can't figure out for the life of them where that is, unfortunately, in the end, feels naggingly unsatisfying. To say the book doesn't wield a unique sort of magic would be a lie. To say that Welty knows how to use the avant garde in a Faulkner-esque way that intrigues more than it frustrates would also be a lie. Two stars.