I became interested in reading further in Eudora Welty (1909 -- 2001) after reading a recently published volume of her correspondence with her friend and editor, William Maxwell.
What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell Thus, I read this Library of America volume which includes Welty's complete novels. A companion volume in the Library of America includes her stories, for which she is better known, together with her essays.
Eudora Welty : Stories, Essays & Memoir (Library of America, 102) When the Library of America published its two volumes of Welty's writings in 1998, it was the first time that the series had published the work of a living American writer.
Welty was born and lived her entire life in Jackson, Mississippi. All her novels are set in Misssippi and have a strong, precise local character. Yet each is an individual work. It is difficult not to fall in love with the state and its people in reading Welty. In addition to writing, Welty had a strong professional interest in photography which shows, I think, in her novels. The books show a strong interest in description, both of places and people. Many passages have an almost photographic quality of a writer with a sharp eye,but the books capture nuances of meaning and thought that photographs can develop only rarely. Of the five novels, four are short. Welty takes small scenes and places and works them closely. The long novel, "Losing Battles" is itself a collection of small scenes and stories joined together. There is a great deal of humor in the novels, but in precision and detail of the writing, they make demanding reading. The novels span much of Welty's lengthy career as a writer. She published her first novel in 1942 and her final novel in 1972. This Library of America volume includes each of the novels together with a valuable chronology of Welty's life and short textual notes. My brief thoughts on each of the novels follow below.
Welty's first novel, "The Robber Bridegroom" (1942) is a short, historical work set in the late 18th Century. It is a mixture of legend, fairy tale, and realism told with humor, quickness, and style. The characters include the legendary, swaggering riverboat man, Mike Fink. The story is a contrast of innocence and naivety with greed and cupidity. The book is one of two Welty novels that became a Broadway play.
Set in a small town in the Mississippi Delta in 1923, "Delta Wedding" (1946) is quissessential Welty. The book describes the wedding of young Dabney Fairchild, 17, of a close-knit wealthy plantation family, to Troy Flavin,34, the overseer of the family plantation. The short book moves slowly and deliberately as it offers a portrayal of a family, the Delta in all its aspects, and change. A major character in the book, George Fairchild, shows exhuberance in his acceptance of life and people.
Welty received the William Howells Medal for Fiction for her short novel of 1954, "The Ponder Heart." This novel also became a Broadway play and musical. The book tells the story of a decaying Mississippi family when one of its more eccentric members marries into a family commonly described as "trash". The book is told in the brilliantly unreliable voice of one Edna Earle Ponder who describes small-town Mississippi, a murder, and a trial. It is an enigmatic comedy that may bear a variety of readings.
Fifteen years separated "The Ponder Heart" from Welty's next novel, the lengthy "Losing Battles" which was shortlisted for the National Book Award. This book is set in northeastern Missisippi in 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression. It takes place during a family reunion for the birthday of a family matriarch. The book is a series of humorous short stories and vignettes that Welty wrote over the years and pieced together to form the novel. The major character is young Jack Renfro who has just escaped from Parchman Prison one day before his scheduled release to attend the reunion. In this long story, Welty describes her poor, hardscrabble people unsentimentally but with love. The reader comes to know almost every aspect of them.
Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for her final and I think best novel, "The Optimist's Daughter" (1972), which is set in Mississippi, New Orleans, and West Virginia. This is the only Welty novel which includes a significant autobiographical element. It tells the story of change and of clashing personalities in values in the conflict between the major character, Laura McKelva, 44, and her father's second wife, Fay, 40 following the death of Judge McKelva. "The Optimist's Daughter" is a story of place, loss, loneliness and, ultimately of accepting oneself and moving ahead with life.
Welty was a writer rooted to place. In her sense of locality and detail, her works describe a particulalry local way of life and yet reach towards the universal. I enjoyed reading this subtle and demanding writer. For those readers wanting to read more detailed reviews of the individual novels, I am attaching links below.
The Robber BridegroomDelta WeddingThe Ponder HeartLosing BattlesOptimist's DaughterRobin Friedman