The title story in this collection, 'Death in the Woods', first published in 1933, is widely regarded as a masterpiece. The narrator looks back at an incident in his childhood where an old woman dies in the cold — in life she was destined to feed those around her, after her death, he feeds from her too. The narrator, looking back, tries to organize his memories and create a meaning and beauty out of them. Rather than remembering an aged woman, he remembers a beautiful, “statuesque” and almost marble figure. The last story is about a dysfunctional family who experiences death in various ways — a potential physical death of a son and a rather more serious death that is not physical. It reflects on family relationships and how “enemies” among the family constantly occur, for example, a mother-daughter or father-son enmity.
Sherwood Anderson (1876 — 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Anderson published several short story collections, novels, memoirs, books of essays, and a book of poetry.
