The Optimist’s Daughter | The Optimist’s Daughter

At a glance:

Author: Eudora Welty
First Published: 1969
Type of Work: Novel
Type of Plot: Domestic realism
Time of Work: The early 1960’s
Setting: New Orleans, Louisiana, and the fictional Mount Salus, Mississippi
Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
Subjects: 1960’s, Memory, Parents and children, Surgery or surgeons, Fathers, Mississippi, New Orleans, Death or dying, Judges, Funeral rites or ceremonies
Locales: New Orleans, LA, Mississippi, Mount Salus, MS

Laurel McKelva Hand, a widow in her mid- forties and a successful fabric designer living in Chicago. Slender, stable, and with “her hair still dark,” she is the optimist’s daughter of the novel’s title. She has flown to New Orleans to be with her father for his operation to repair a damaged retina. She reads to him during his initial recovery and then returns to her family home for his funeral—and to sort out some of her own past. Much of the novel and many of its memories are filtered through Laurel’s consciousness, especially back at Mount...

The Optimist’s Daughter | The Optimist’s Daughter

At a glance:

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