George Wylie Henderson (1904-1965) is best known as the author of OLLIE MISS. Though both a critical and popular success during his lifetime, he has languished among academics as a "minor novelist." Editor Nicholls speculates that "Henderson's individualist ethos and his debt to Booker T. Washington" would not have appealed to the black aesthetic and feminist movements of the 1960's and `70's when the canon of the Harlem Renaissance was being solidified. A migrant to Harlem from Alabama with a Tuskegee education, he also arrived on the scene a bit late.

Collected here for the first time are sixteen stories which originally appeared in mainstream publications: nine from the Daily News, and seven published in Redbook. The editorial parameters of each publication make the two sets of stories quite different in terms of length, style, and to some extent, subject matter. But all of the stories - whether set in the rural South or in Harlem - are compelling, simple and well-crafted, bringing characters to life in a way which reminded me of Zora Neale Hurston.

Which is not to say these are simple characters, caught as some are in the social upheaval of the Great Migration. For example, in the title story, Henderson tangibly, poignantly captures the ambivalence of the young bride Obelia, who has one foot planted in the "new world" and the other equally rooted in the old.

This brief collection left me wanting more. According to a catalog found in Henderson's papers, there were at least fifteen additional stories but sadly, they're unpublished and lost. Which makes this collection even more of a treasure!