The Optimist's Daughter

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Welty, Eudora	4-week checkout	Due 04-15-2024

Laurel Hand, long absent from the South, comes from Chicago to New Orleans, where her father dies after surgery. With Fay, the stupid new young wife of her father, Laurel returns to her former Mississippi home and stays a few days after the funeral for reunions with old friends. In a night alone in the house she grew up in, she confronts elements of the past and comes to a better understanding of it and of herself and her parents.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A moving meditation on grief and parentage submitted by morrisonn on June 17, 2022, 7:34pm The book took a while to get to its point, but having finished I don't mind—it was a moving meditation on grief and parentage and it all felt intentional. Welty wisely contrasts excessive, chattering (and occasionally funny!) dialogue that makes you want all of the characters to leave with the quiet, reflective "meat" of the book once Laurel finds herself alone with her thoughts. The closer I got to the end of the book the more I underlined (my own copy, not to fret AADL!)