cover image Letters of Katherine Anne Porter

Letters of Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter. Atlantic Monthly Press, $29.95 (642pp) ISBN 978-0-87113-286-4

From the thousands of letters Porter wrote during her major working years, 1930-1963, a close friend here selects those that biographically portray the distinguished American writer (1890-1980). An introduction, ``who's who'' and brief headnotes to the 12 chronological sections relate the correspondence to Porter's friendships with Hart Crane, Caroline Gordon, J. F. Powers, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren and Glenway Wescott, among other writers; to her family, lovers, editors and publishers; to the origin and development of ``Flowering Judas,'' ``Pale Horse, Pale Rider,'' ``The Leaning Tower'' and Ship of Fools. The letters reveal a gracious, generous, loving nature, so different (except in her dismissal of Leslie Fiedler as patronizing, dishonest, inferior and mischievous) from what one reads of Porter in the books of others. (May)