The Optimist's Daughter

Eudora Welty performs her own work, which glows with Southern ambiance and sensibilities. She adeptly depicts the world of Laurel McKelva, who is coping with the death of her father in a New Orleans hospital. When Laurel returns to Mississippi, friends and family converge to bid the Judge adieu. Welty delivers her picturesque prose with a measured pace, a genuine accent, and a natural cadence that she truly owns. The characters' internal observations and ageless colloquialisms are spoken with an ease and comfort that honor old-fashioned Southern ways. Her voice gently hints at class snobbery while grief, loss, love, and family resentments blend as an excuse for the characters to masterfully vent. Although some of the dialogue lacks expression, perhaps the author performs it thus to place the vanishing time and place in high relief. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine