Literary Fiction · MelancholicA daughter returns to Mississippi after her father's death
The Optimist's Daughter
by Eudora Welty
A widowed daughter returns to her Mississippi home after her father's death
Laurel Hand travels from Chicago to New Orleans to help her father, Judge Clint McKelva, recover from eye surgery. During his long stay in the hospital she begins to understand her father's younger second wife, Fay. The story then moves to the family home in Mount Salus, Mississippi, where Laurel reconnects with the town and her past.
More about this book
Who
Laurel Hand, a widow; her father, Judge Clint McKelva; and his younger second wife, Fay. Laurel's late mother, Becky, appears through memory.
World
A New Orleans hospital during Mardi Gras, then the family house in Mount Salus, Mississippi.
What makes it different
It is a short novel, first published as a long story in The New Yorker in March 1969 and as a book by Random House in 1972. Its central metaphor is vision, linking seeing with understanding. It won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Feel
Quiet and compact, a story of grief and memory in a small Southern town.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- The Optimist's DaughterWikipedia