FROM TEXAS TO THE WORLD AND BACK Essays on theJourneys of Katherine Anne Porter Edited by Mark Busby & Dick Heaberlin FROM TEXAS TO THE WORLD AND BACK FROM TEXAS TO THE WORLD AND BACK Essays on the Journeys of Katherine Anne Porter Edited by Mark Busby & Dick Heaberlin TCU PRESS ■ FORT WORTH Copyright © 2001 Center for the Study ofthe Southwest Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data From texas to the world and back:essays on the journeys ofKatherine Anne Porter / edited by Mark Busby and Dick Heaberlin. p.cm. “Sixteen essays first presented at a May 15,1998 conference ...at Southwest Texas State University and held in San Marcos”—Introd. Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN )-87565-237-9 (alk.paper) 1.Porter,Katherine Anne,1890-1980 —Journeys—Congresses. 2.Authors,American—20th Century—Biography—Congresses. 3.Women and literature—Southern States —History—20th Century— Congresses.I.Busby,Mark.II.Heaberlin,Dick. PS3531.0752 z62 2001 813’.52—dc21 [B] 00-064863 Jacket: Black-and-white portraits ofKatherine Anne Porter taken in Notre Dame des Champs apartment,Paris,between the Spring of1935 and the Winter of1935-36.Courtesy Papers of Katherine Anne Porter,Special Collections,University ofMaryland ,College Park,Libraries. Color photograph by Paul Porter. Book and jacket design/Margie Adkins Graphic Design To Linda and Andrea and to all future writers from Texas and beyond who aspire to achieve the skill and grace of Katherine Anne Porter. v Contents Betsy Colquitt—Introduction ........................................................... ix Don Graham—Katherine Anne Porter’s Journey from Texas to the World ........................................................ 1 Janis P.Stout—Writing Home:Katherine Anne Porter, Coming and Going ................................................................ 20 Darlene Harbour Unrue—Katherine Anne Porter’s Birthdays ........ 38 Jeraldine R.Kraver—Troubled Innocent Abroad:Katherine Anne Porter’s Colonial Adventure .................................................. 54 James Ward Lee—Porter and Dobie:The Marriage from Hell ....... 66 Richard Holland—Katherine Anne Porter and the University of Texas:A Map of Misunderstanding ................ 78 Larry Herold—Trapped by the Great White Searchlight: Katherine Anne Porter and Marital Bliss .............................. 98 Roger Brooks—Hosting Miss Porter ................................................. 110 vii Lou Rodenberger—The Prodigal Daughter Comes Home .............. 122 Mark Busby—Katherine Anne Porter and Texas: Ambivalence Deep as the Bone ............................................. 133 Terrell F.Dixon—Knowing Nature in Katherine Anne Porter’s Short Fiction .................................. 149 Bert Almon—Katherine Anne Porter and William Humphrey: A Mentorship Reconsidered .................................................. 164 Rob Johnson—A “taste for the exotic”:Revolutionary Mexico and the Short Stories of Katherine Anne Porter and María Cristina Mena ........................................................ 178 Christine H.Hait—Gender and Creativity in Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Princess” .............................. 199 Robert K.Miller—Cover-Ups:Katherine Anne Porter and the Economics of Concealment ..................................... 213 Sylvia Grider—Memories That Never Were: Katherine Anne Porter and the Family Saga ......................... 225 Contributors ..................................................................................... 239 Index ................................................................................................. 243 viii Introduction Betsy Colquitt E dited by Mark Busby and Dick Heaberlin,From Texas to the World and Back: Katherine Anne Porter’s Journeyscollects sixteen essays first presented at a May 15,1998,conference organized by Busby as director ofthe Center for Study ofthe Southwest at Southwest Texas State University and held in San Marcos.The conference celebrated both Porter’s life and works and the recent acquisition by SWT and the Hays County Preservation Associates of the house in Kyle,Texas,where Porter lived from age two until her early teens when she left Texas to begin her journeys “to the world.”The refurbished house, once the home of Porter’s paternal grandmother, will become a museum named for the writer and used by SWT writing programs. After Porter left the state as a young woman, she never again resided in Texas and visited only rarely,but in her essay “Noon Wine:The Sources,” she recalls her Texas past lyrically and also acknowledges her Texas heritage as the primary source for her stories and novellas.As this 1956 essay notes,after leaving Texas,she spent “fourteen years in Mexico, Bermuda,Spain,Germany,Switzerland,but,happiest and best,nearly five years in Paris.”(The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings ofKatherine Anne Porter, Delacorte,New York,1970,470).Her return to America in 1936 ended her “living abroad except for short visits back to Paris, Brittany, Rome, Belgium” (469). But though she began writing “Noon ix