SOURCE: A foreword to Clearing in the Sky and Other Stories by Jesse Stuart, The University Press of Kentucky, 1984, pp. ix-xiv.

In the following essay, written for the reprint of Stuart's Clearing in the Sky, Foster surveys the major themes of the collection.

When literary historians a hundred years hence write a history of the American short story, Jesse Stuart's name may well be near the top. Stuart has written well in the genres of the novel, essay, and poetry, but for many of us his greatest talent has been shown in the short story which has always been his special delight. Doubtless he has written too many short stories (some five hundred at the last count), but we should not hold this against him since he has lodged so many of that five hundred everlastingly in the imagination of America. Stuart, like many American writers, has created...