The Best of Simple: Stories by Langston Hughes 3 stars

[Karin]

Hughes was an excellent writer, but I'm not that keen on short stories or protagonists who get drunk a lot and have more than one person they are dallying with if one is serious. I realize that people are divided on that idea, naturally, or there wouldn't be so many people who do that; I did respect that he (view spoiler)[stopped dallying with other women after he got married (hide spoiler)] and I found myself liking things about Simple in spite of that. All of the stories are told in dialogue between Semple and someone called "I" which I thought was well done.

There are other stories about Simple (Semple is his surname) but this is a collection that I am guessing spans a number of years that was first published together in 1961.

However, there are some brilliant bits in this and I can see why it has such a high average rating; I didn't dislike it and could never rate it less than a like which I have freely done with a number of big name classic writers (loathe Steinbeck's writing, for one.)