I am now reading The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes, which I discovered in my favorite used book store. In the past, I never saw anything but his poetry collections in used book stores, and they didn’t interest me. But this is a collection of short stories, which I am very fond of. I opened it up and read “Melton was one of those miserable in-between little places, not large enough to be a town, nor small enough to be a village—that is, a village in the rural, charming sense of the word.” Intrigued.
And later: “Cora was not humble before the fact of death. As she turned away from the hole, tears came—but at the same time a stream of curses so violent that they made the grave-tenders look up in startled horror.” Sold!