An Overdue Spotlight

In a just world, Nancy Hale (1908–1988) would need no introduction. Her name would be soaked into the American book consciousness as thoroughly as those of her contemporaries F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. But the world isn’t just, as we all know or eventually learn, and thus chances are slim that you’ve come across mention of her name, much less ever read a sentence of hers., but especially in her hundred-plus short stories, so many of which appeared in the that for a time she was all but a columnist. Hale’s stories, like her characters, tended to be cool to the touch, but, as with Edith Wharton, roiling just beneath the surface was a red-hot molten core. At the time of her death, however, her renown had already begun to blink and fizzle; only two of her many books remained in print. After that, it was mostly lights out.