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Is set upon by Fay, who breaks down under the tension. The Judge, hovering in some twilight zone of pain, immobilized by sandbags, Out of the discordant jumble of three lives trapped in a claustrophobic hospital room, a fourth figure emerges-Becky, the Judge's first wife.īecause the struggle between Laurel and Fay is a battle of values, it takes place inside Laurel as well she is forced for the first time in her life to examine what she believes in. The conflict between these middleaged women begins a war between worlds hopelessly at odds. Widow still mourning for a husband killed in World War II, and Fay is a childish vulgarian embarked on the one secure relationship of her life. When Laurel Hand, a Mississippian living in Chicago, is summoned to a New Orleans hospital to join her father, a 71-year-old Judge who is about to undergo a critical eyes operation, she clashes with his new, and second, wife, Fay. And if place has been Miss Welty's touchstone, the pun implicit in the word "place" comes alive in her new novel its colloquial meaning-caste, class, position- is as important as its In "The Optimist's Daughter," we are in the South once more, but a South where real distinctions are made between Texas and Mississippi,Īnd Mississippi and West Virginia. They are subjects only partly dependent on locale. Though she has stayed close to home, two interlocking notions have been demonstrated in her fiction: how easily the ordinary turns into legend, and how firmly Known as a "Southern regionalist," Miss Welty is too good for pigeonholing labels. And its story has all those qualities peculiar to the finest short novels: a theme that vibrates with overtones, suspense and classical inevitability. Its style is at the service of a story that follows its nose with the instincts of a good hunting dog never losing the scent Udora Welty's novel, "The Optimist's Daughter," which first appeared in The New Yorker of March 15, 1969, is a miracle ofĬompression, the kind of book, small in scope but profound in its implications, that rewards a lifetime of work.
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Eudora Welty's New Novel About Death and ClassĮudora Welty's New Novel About Death and Class By HOWARD MOSS