Carolyn J. Brown

This is advertised as a work "for all ages," but I believe the target audience would be on the younger side of young adult. 4 stars based on that audience (2 stars for an adult reader). In that context, it is a great introduction to the life of one of our great Southern writers. It has a plethora of photographs which really add to the text.

As one who hasn't seen the younger side of young adult for decades, I would not necessarily recommend it to someone who has already read a biography of Welty. Brown relies heavily on the work of Suzanne Marrs and for most adult readers, it would do just as well to go to that source.

The book is due in early August of 2012 and I received my copy free from the publisher.… (mehr)

This slim biography is a concise but worthy introduction to Eudora Welty’s life, which covered most of the last century, and it provides insight into how personal circumstances and national events affected Welty’s writing for readers who aren’t yet prepared to tackle a larger book about her. It quotes extensively from the much longer (almost 700 page) biography by Suzanne Marrs, a women author Carolyn J. Brown thanks as a mentor in the acknowledgements, and from Eudora Welty’s own book about her life, One Writer’s Beginning. Eudora grew up in Jackson, Mississippi and began her writing life as a listener, even as a child always interested in the stories being told around her. Her life encapsulates some of the big events of the 1900’s. She lived through the Great Depression, she had many friends, family members, and an early love interest who fought in World War II, and she supported the Civil Rights movement even in its early days by refusing to speak to segregated audiences. Though caregiving family members put her writing on hold for years, Welty won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter in 1973. Readers of A Daring Life may be inspired to seek out Welty’s stories, novels and essays.… (mehr)