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Blackberry Winter | Introduction

The novelette Blackberry Winter was originally published separately in 1946 and subsequently collected in Robert Penn Warren’s first and only volume of short stories, The Circus in the Attic, initially published in 1947. Blackberry Winter is widely believed to be Penn’s finest work of short fiction. It has been included in many anthologies and has garnered the interest of critics and readers. Since its first publication, critics have noted Warren’s deft evocation of the textures and rhythms of rural Tennessee and his ear for dialogue. One of the reasons for the story’s popularity is the universal appeal of the narrator, whose boyhood innocence is as convincing as his adult ambivalence and restlessness.

Blackberry Winter Summary

This novelette is a recollection of one memorable day in the childhood of Seth, the narrator, then nine years old. It is told as a first-person narrative, more than thirty-five years later. The title refers to the weather phenomenon of a period of cool temperatures in June. The story takes place in middle Tennessee.

On this unseasonably cold day Seth’s mother forbids him to go outside barefoot, but he disobeys her, wanting to ‘‘rub [his] feet over the wet shivery grass and make the perfect mark of [his] foot in the smooth, creamy, red mud.’’ But before he can get out the door, Seth notices something unusual: ‘‘Out of the window on the north side of the fireplace I could see the man . . . still far off, come along by the path of the woods.’’ The boy watches the man follow a path where the family’s fence meet the woods. From a distance he can tell that the man is a stranger and that he is approaching the house. After Seth’s mother calls off the dogs the man is near enough for closer inspection, and the boy sees that he is carrying a paper parcel in one hand and a switch-blade knife in the other. According to the narrator’s assessment of the stranger, ‘‘Everything was wrong about what he wore.’’ His worn khaki pants and dark wool coat and hat, his tie stuffed in a pocket and his city shoes mark him as both strange and menacing. Despite premonitions of danger, however, the boy is fascinated and drawn to the man who has come... » Complete Blackberry Winter Summary