In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women - Powerful Short Story Collection for Book Clubs & Literature Lovers

Alice Walker is the author of ”The Color Purple” for which she won the National Book Award for fiction, as well as a Pulitzer Prize in 1983. She was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in fiction.Walker has also published a number of successful novels as well as collections of poetry, essays, and short stories. She has been an activist in the civil rights movement, as well as an outstanding writer.“In Love & Trouble”, a collection of short stories, is her first short story collection and was published in 1973, 10 years before she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.The stories portray the poverty, depression, and hopelessness in the lives of Black women. The exception is “To Hell With Dying”, a story that is bittersweet but more uplifting. It also has a strong role for a male character although it is seen through the eyes of a little girl and later from her perspective as a grown woman.Alice Walker’s brilliance is apparent, but many of the stories are either depressing or really gruesome and hard to read. I cannot recommend all of the stories, only some of them. “Entertaining God” is disturbing but well written. “The Flowers” is also a powerful story. “To Hell With Dying” is exquisite.My favorite story is “To Hell with Dying” which tells the story of Mr. Sweet and his relationship to a little girl and her siblings. The little girl (as her older brother did before her) brought him back from death many times by tickling and kissing him. Mr. Sweet was the little girl’s first love. This endearing old man played with her and her siblings when they were children. He was often drunk but lucid at the same time. He smelled of liquor and tobacco and had thick curly white hair and a white beard. He played a steel guitar and sang songs such as “Sweet Georgia Brown”. This story was such a relief from the stories of pain, suffering, and hopelessness.