Word: ripen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Born on a Louisiana plantation 38 years ago, Gaines is first and last a country-boy writer. He sets down a story as if he were planting, spreading the roots deep, wide and firm. His stories grow organically, at their own rhythm. When they ripen at last, they do so inevitably, arriving at a climax with the absolute Tightness of a folk tale. "Just Like a Tree," the final story in his fine 1968 collection, Bloodline, could serve as the description for all Gaines' work. Making a slow concentric dance around the life and death of a matriarch named...