Sherwood Anderson, who greatly influenced Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, published in 1921 a collection of short stories called THE EGG AND OTHER STORIES. It came two years after his classic WINESBURG, OHIO.
The title story in this collection is quite humorous, while most of the stories have themes of mortality, lives not fully lived, yearnings, dreams of escapement, disappointments, and the necessity of connection between people.
Anderson’s writing is wonderful. He really gets inside of the minds of his characters. He tends to be repetitive in his words, but not to the point of irritation.
Although his words are wonderful, this is not a book you want to read if you’re depressed! ( )

This collection by Sherwood Anderson makes me remember both why I would love to be a writer and why I fear writing. Some of the stories are absolutely amazing. Some fall short. Some delve into characterization with such finesse; some leave me with no interest in the person's life, nor how the life affected anyone.

I would come back to these: The Other Woman, The Egg, Milk Bottles, The Man's Story, Death in the Woods, In a Strange Town, Brother Death, Virginia Justice, Mrs. Wife, Pastoral, Nobody Laughed

Probably won’t come back to read them again: Certain Things Last. Brothers, An Ohio Pagan, The Return, A Meeting South, The Flood, In a Field, The Corn Planting, For What?, The Masterpiece,

Not worth reading the first time, in my opinion: I Want to Know Why, I'm a Fool, The Man who Became a Woman, There She is – She is Taking her Bath, These Mountaineers, A Criminal’s Christmas, Not Sixteen, Fred, The Red Dog

Anderson deals with real people in way that most writers today don’t seem to anymore. He concentrates on the details that make a person who he is, the details the character might not have even worked out for himself yet. I appreciate this, but I admit it can make it difficult to become absorbed in a few pages of a short story. In his top tier works, he snatched me within a paragraph; in the bottom tier, I wasn’t sure there was anything worth snatching.

I also found myself drawn into the third party stories in relation to small town Midwest life. Gossips abound everywhere in the world, but those of us from the Midwest might be able to appreciate Anderson’s style just a bit more than most.

“I met this man, and here is his story…” is a good way of summing up many of these pieces. Most of the time, within the format of the story, and what snippets come in between, a close reader can gain a true sense of the story teller as well. ( )

Sherwood Anderson, like no other author, digs deep into the minds of those who feel unlike those people in their hometown. His stories are often about people who leave home to try to find themselves, something different, or people who can understand them. Often, however, the characters realize that they are either alone wherever they go or that there are people who understand them back in their hometown.

The two best stories in this collection are "The Egg" and "Out of Nowhere Into Nothing". The others aren't nearly as memorable. However, I think that the purchase of this book of short stories is worth it for those two stories alone. ( )