Delta Wedding Group Read - Discussion Thread

Hello all! This is the discussion thread for Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty.

We have a good-sized group participating: Laura, Vivian, Caro, Claire, Karen, Bill, and me. Linda is, I believe, planning to follow along but not rereading the book at this time. Of course, any and all are welcome to join in!

I'll start the book this afternoon.

First published in 1945 (Wikipedia says 1946, but my copy has the original copyright as 1945), it is set in the Mississippi Delta in 1923, the Jim Crow south. Nine-year-old Laura is visiting her large extended family on their plantation, called Shellmound, for her 17-year-old cousin's wedding. Laura can attend, but she can't be in the wedding as her mother has recently died. I'm assuming this is a 1920s southern etiquette thing. In any case, the novel is described on the back of my copy as a "vivid and charming portrait of a Southern family." There is vague promise of family ghosts and skeletons.

I'll start reading this afternoon. My Harvest/HBJ edition, which I picked up at our local used bookstore, looks like this:

Thanks for creating the thread, Ellen! I'm reading the Virago Modern Classics edition, which came to me via Paperbackswap waaay back in 2012. It's about time I read it, eh? The VMC edition looks like this:

Enjoy, everybody! Can't wait to see what you'all think of it.

For what it's worth, from Wikipedia:

Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer, who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi, has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.

I’ve added this thread to the group wiki. Have fun with it!

I am going to try to join in. I requested a copy of the book from our library and will try to read it. I probably won't get much reading done in it until later in the month. I have to finish reading the last book for the Kansas Authors Club science fiction/fantasy contest and write up my recommendations by September 18. I only have one book left to read, but it is the fourth in a series, so it is harder to read since I have to figure out some of the things that have happened in the previous books.

I have wanted to read a book by Welty since I read What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell by Suzanne Marrs back in 2019. This book was the edited letters of Welty and Maxwell. Maxwell was the fiction editor of The New Yorker and edited most of Welty's work. Over the years they developed a friendship and Welty often stayed with the Maxwell's when she visited New York City. Their letters gave such a vivid portrait of their literary lives that I have been intrigued by Welty ever since and really want to read her work. Reading this book with all of you is just the incentive that I need to get busy and read.

I hope to get to Jackson, Mississippi sometime this fall to visit her house and the garden she created around it. However, given the problems that Jackson is having with water and my current schedule it will be later this fall.

Thanks for setting this thread up. I doubt I'll be able to join in but I'm starring the thread so I can keep up with the conversation and have it when I get around to reading it.

I am settling down to read this now, it's my non-working day, so I hope to take a fair bite out of it today.

I have it on Kindle, this was the cover showing when I bought it:



>7 benitastrnad: That has gone straight into my shopping cart Benita. I love letters.

>4 laytonwoman3rd: Chime in on the conversation anytime, Linda!

>6 drneutron: Thanks Jim.

>7 benitastrnad: That sounds interesting, Benita. I hope you're able to visit Jackson later in the year.

>8 PawsforThought: Hi Paws. That's the great thing about group read threads: they are always there for you when you're ready.

>9 Caroline_McElwee: Welcome, Caro!

>7 benitastrnad: I have the Marrs collection of Welty/Maxwell letters, but haven't read it yet. I have loved Miss Eudora since I first "met" her in "Why I Live at the P.O." nearly 50 years ago. A Mississippi pilgrimage to Oxford and Jackson has been a dream of mine for a long time. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but back in the 60s my aunt was redecorating, and she gave my mother a pair of table lamps which remained part of Mom's living room decor in three houses. They are virtually identical to those in Miss Eudora's bedroom, which I discovered sometime in the last 20 years. Everyone in the family knew that those lamps were MINE when Mom was through with them.

Hi all!

Thanks for making a thread for this shared read, Laura.

I've pulled my copy into the Sunroom/home office, and hope to actually start/finish it while still in the midst of my 'extreme romance' phase, now 4+ months long.

Here's the cover for my copy:



I read The Optimist's Daughter in 2001, my choice for my RL book club. I've lived in North Carolina for 31 1/2 years and have come to learn a bit about Southern lore and mores.

>6 drneutron: Thanks Jim!

>7 benitastrnad: What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell sounds really interesting, Benita! I hope you're able to join in the discussion here but no one will understand better than I if you can't shoehorn it in.

>8 PawsforThought: Sounds like a good plan, Paws. We'll be glad for your lurking. :-)

>9 Caroline_McElwee: Hi Caroline. I am in the middle of Chapter II of Delta Wedding so far. In the first chapter, I was trying to decide how closely to attend to the many characters, and how much to let it flow over me without worrying too much about that set of details. Now their "portraits" are coming together in my mind.

>10 lauralkeet: Hi Laura!

>11 laytonwoman3rd: Linda, I love that story about the table lamps! And I followed the link. Lamps are one of those things that I think are almost impossible to make attractive, and I love those!

>12 karenmarie: Hi Karen. I'm musing about reading Delta Wedding in the middle of your "extreme romance" reading phase. It seems kind of perfect.

I grew up in central Florida and my mother was Nashville born and bred. She and my father met when he was in college/grad school at Vanderbilt; they lived in Virginia and Kentucky before moving to Florida in 1959. His New Jersey upbringing diminished my own southernness to some degree, but I still identify as a Southerner and certainly as a Florida native. It's an interesting internal dynamic: there are so many things about Florida and the south that I love, and so many things that I abhor.

>11 laytonwoman3rd:
I strongly encourage you to read What There Is To Say We Have Said. It was very interesting and showed the trajectory of both writing lives. It also talks about other authors of the time and it really brought home the feeling of the era. That gave me a sense of time and place that I don't think I would have had if the book had been a narrative about the two of them and their life in literature.

I read this book because one of the monthly challenges for the LT Nonfiction group (hosted by Suzanne/Chatterbox) was epistolary works. This book fit that perfectly. It did take me longer to read it than a month, but it was so engrossing that I am still glad I read it.

I had purchased the book in June of 2012 when I went to Oxford, Mississippi for the "Booktopia" meeting that was done for several years by the two book people that did the "Books on the Nightstand" podcast and the Square Books Bookstores in Oxford. The events were held at several different venues including the William Fulkner home, two of the Square books bookstores, and two of the historic churches. Suzanne Marrs (not the Suzanne who hosts the LT Nonfiction group) was one of the speakers. The book What There Is To Say We Have Said had just been published and because the authors presentation was so compelling I purchased the book.

Marrs has a second book of letters from Welty. This one is titled Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald. I do not have a copy of this book, but do have it on my wishlist. I WILL read it someday.

Both of these books are edited so be aware that the book is not the entirety of the correspondence between Welty and Maxwell. Even so it was an amazing book and I found that I loved the epistolary writing style. I even have one of these that uses the correspondence of Margaret Mitchell. It makes me want to take up letter writing for myself. It is a beautiful form of communication.

"Both of them would tell you that Jim Allen was the better cake maker, but Primrose was better with preserves and pickles and candy, and knew just the minute any named thing ought to be taken off the fire."

This sentence just delighted me. It exudes southernness and I love the images developing in my mind of the two "old maid" aunts. I feel like I'm in that kitchen with them and it vividly evokes memories of one of my childhood friend's grandmother and aunt, sisters who lived together.

Hi everyone! I just borrowed Delta Wedding on audio (narrated by Sally Darling) from my library. I'll start as soon as I finish my current audio, Salt Lick. This will be my first Welty, despite the fact that she was the commencement speaker at my college graduation. I'm glad to be finally addressing this very serious oversight in my reading life.

I started reading last night, beginning with the introduction. Virago introductions invariably contain plot spoilers, so I stop reading when the author starts getting into the novel itself. In this case it was only a few paragraphs, but I still came away with an interesting nugget.

During the Depression, Welty worked for the Works Progress Administration in Mississippi, traveling all over the state. She took a camera with her to capture the lives of everyday citizens. Welty felt this experience was a significant influence on her storytelling. Paul Binding, the author of the introduction, stated:

In so many of the stories of A Curtain of Green and The Wide Net the author seems to have caught the characters unawares at moments of secret importance, moments whose significance she celebrates through her writing.

I've been dipping in and out of The Complete Stories of Eudora Welty and for the most part have not quite "connected" with them. Binding's comments cast new light on those that I've read and encouraged me to keep going. I thought this insight to Welty's work might also be useful to bear in mind while reading Delta Wedding.

I read a bit of the opening chapter last night but I was sleepy so I didn't get far ...

Not far behind am I. I finished a book at about 4 this morning, thus clearing my reading focus for Miss Welty. I have the same edition as Karen, and I will get started today.

As this group gets to reading, I want to share a bit of Eudora Welty lore I learned from photographer Sally Mann, from her memoir Hold Still. Mann's friend Lee Smith, now a writer, was a student at Hollins College when Miss Welty gave a talk there. Mann wrote:

Welty read a short story in which one female character presents another with a marble cake. In the back of the audience Smith noted a group of leather-elbowed, goatee-sporting PhD candidates, all of whom were getting pretty excited. One started waving his hand as soon as she stopped reading and said, "Miz Welty, how did you come up with that powerful symbol of the marble cake, with the feminine and masculine, the yin and the yang, the Freudian and the Jungian all mixed together like that?"

Smith reported that Welty looked at him from the lectern without saying anything for a while. Finally she replied mildly, "Well, you see, it's a recipe that's been in my family for some time."

>16 benitastrnad: Some people here will not be surprised to learn that I have the Welty/MacDonald letters also, and a volume of Welty's correspondence with her agent Diarmuid Russell, AND a collection of letters between William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, AND William Faulkner's letters to damned near everybody... OR that these two statements: " in June of 2012 ... I went to Oxford, Mississippi for the "Booktopia" and "she was the commencement speaker at my college graduation" have turned me a most unattractive shade of green.

>17 EBT1002: I can hear every word of that in Eudora's marvelous voice. If you haven't rousted up a recording of her speaking, you need to do it.

I have enjoyed the opening of this book, loved the detail, felt I was sitting on Laura's shoulder. Enjoyed the increased momentum as she surfs into the lives of her cousins and their families. Welty has a sharp eye.

>19 lauralkeet: I so hate spoilers that I always leave introductions til the end Laura.

How are you enjoying your namesake?

>22 Caroline_McElwee: I was hoping to carve out more reading time yesterday but it didn't happen and once again I managed only a few pages. But like you Caro, I felt like I was sitting on Laura's (my namesake!) shoulder. Seeing everything through her eyes raises many questions as you're trying to keep all the characters straight, but I am sure this will become more clear in time.

>18 vivians: Glad you're jumping in, Vivian. I would be interested in hearing about whatever you remember from her commencement address.

>19 lauralkeet: That is a helpful tidbit, indeed, and affirming of my experience so far with DW. It is full of long paragraphs focused on a private, interior moment of one of the characters. There are also lost of descriptions of decor...

>20 weird_O: I LOVE that story!!!

>21 laytonwoman3rd: Linda, I will look for a recording of her voice. I don't believe I have heard it before.

>22 Caroline_McElwee: "Welty has a sharp eye." Yes! And it fits perfectly with the photograph taking story from her time in the WPA.

>23 lauralkeet: About looking over Laura's shoulder (I've completed Chapter III now) -- I was glad that the narrative shifted enough for me to "see" into the interior experience of some of the other characters, too. I wondered about Laura as the protagonist when, in Chapter II, the narration follows a fairly extensive scene in which Laura is not present.

I've found a copy and read Chapter 1 last night. The setting is a character in itself, so vividly is the place described. I find the evocation of the scents, warmth, landscape, buildings, etc really spring to life in my mind. Laura is the perfect way in to this large, chaotic family; she is both an insider and an outsider, so we get some of her knowledge but also her disorientation.

I was finally able to set down and read a spell this afternoon (imagine this said in a Southern US accent 😀). I'm currently in the middle of Chapter III. I agree with Claire in >25 Sakerfalcon: about the setting, and enjoy Laura's perspective on this crew even if they are a bit difficult to keep track of.

I'm probably not going to get much reading done until Friday, when I have some train travel. My reading has been a bit sluggish the past ten days.

Just finished Chapter 2 - ah, the nightlight! I remember that clearly from my long-ago reading of the novel! The aunts and their home are so vividly depicted, you can imagine yourself there with the characters.

I'm well into Chapter 3 and enjoying it more than at the beginning. I'm still confused about some of the aunts and uncles and might try to find a family tree. I'm most interested in the class distinctions, such as the way the Fairchilds look down on George's wife. It surprises me that they're permitting Dabney's marriage.

>18 vivians: My commencement memoires are quite hazy because 1) it was > 40 years ago (!!!!) and 2) I spent much of that weekend trying to civilize my then boyfriend (now husband) so that my parents wouldn't be too scandalized!

Chapter IV left me a bit cold but the first scene in chapter V was wonderful. It so vividly evoked the setting of the Delta woods, the whirlpool, and Dabney's emotions while there in the early morning.

It's been a busy week and I'm going camping this weekend. I expect to finish DW while sitting under the trees. I'll be very happy.

I just finished Chapter IV last night -- interesting reaction, Ellen, because I found myself having to concentrate to follow what was going on. Is it the writing? The large cast of characters? I'm not sure. I'm really enjoying the book but not moving through it as quickly as I'd like.

Looking forward to Chapter V (and avoiding the spoilery comment for the moment).

I've read my way out of the first chapter of Delta Wedding and I am surging into chapter two. You do need a roster of the players, as Vivian noted in >29 vivians:. How did an unmarried lady in the family get the name "Jim Allen"? Miz Welty sees all and writes it down and sneaks it into the narrative. You have to stay alert, 'cause otherwise you must back up and reread more. I'll be liking it.

>32 weird_O: I couldn't agree more, Bill!

>33 vivians: WOW. This is soooo useful. It took me four chapters to figure out Vi'let was a servant, and even then I wasn't 100% positive. Thanks for finding and posting this!

I managed some productive spells of reading over the weekend, and finished the book yesterday. Despite the confusing cast of characters and the prose requiring a lot of concentration, I liked and appreciated it quite a lot. I'll write a review, but my thoughts are still percolating and I'd love to chat about it here too.

Very little time to read while away, but hope to finish in the next couple of days.

It was a slow start for me but I ended up really enjoying it. The family dynamics were intriguing, especially the veneration they all felt for Uncle George despite his reprehensible behavior (did I read that part correctly???). I was also surprised that there was no attempt to prevent Dabney's marriage. She seemed like such a child to me, but I guess at that time age 17 was considered old enough.

I finished the book last night and I have mixed feelings. I appreciated elements: the family dynamics, the vivid evocation of setting (including food), and some passages of lovely prose. I'm from the south (although not the deep delta south) and there were scenes into which I felt truly transported (did I mention the food?). But I struggled with the choppy dialogue and perhaps I'm like some of the critics of the day, frustrated with lack of plot. That's on me. I also struggled with the shallowness of the family, but perhaps that was part of the point?

Vivian, like you I was surprised the family seemed to accept Dabney's marriage despite references to her marrying beneath her. I was also surprised by her age, and the age difference between Dabney and Troy. I can't imagine modern day parents accepting that.

Ellen, I agree with your comments about the shallowness of the family. Ellen and George seem to me to be the only ones who ever stop to think. George is an interesting one, he seems to be a symbol of some sort although I couldn't quite figure out what Welty wanted him to represent. I felt I knew Ellen much better by the end of the novel (that poor woman--constantly pregnant!!), but in general the novel was lacking in character development. I think that's part of what made it so confusing at the beginning, because there were so many people to sort out and they were kind of indistinguishable from one another.

Y'all are making me really want to re-read Delta Wedding. Sorry I couldn't fit it in in time to participate properly in this discussion. A couple quick thoughts based on somewhat foggy recollection... I think the "character" that Welty was putting out there was really the family, not any one individual. And I think that, despite its setting in the early 1920s, it is important to remember that it was written immediately post WWII, when conformity to a set of stabilizing values was understandably seen as the way to return to "normalcy". The family (the WOMEN) expect Dabney to settle in to a safe domestic routine, and a married (read "tamed") Dabney, even if her spouse isn't quite the one they would have chosen, is preferable to a Dabney on the loose. Welty likes to poke at convention, so naturally she shows us in many ways how the Fairchild concept of happiness is flawed. It's all surface (as some of you said "shallow"), and cultivated to control the undercurrents of emotion and "unnatural" inclinations that threaten to disrupt it. I think the sharpest example of this is the oft-repeated tale of George's "heroism" on the trestle, compared with Dabney's memory of him breaking up a fight between two black boys years ago. The latter incident not only isn't worthy of after-dinner tale-telling, it's a secret. George is meant to be a classic Southern gentlemen, and his women-folk do their level best to reinforce that image, despite a good deal of evidence to the contrary.

Linda, thank you so much for sharing your perspective. This is really interesting and gives me a lot to think about.

>40 laytonwoman3rd: Having just finished a reread of Delta wedding I very much agree with your take on it, especially that the family as a whole is the main character. We are reminded of our outsider status, even when seeing through the eyes of an insider such as Ellen or Dabney, by the knowledge that they take for granted and which isn't explained to us. And your point about the desire for a post-war return to normality is excellent. The same thing happened post-WWII, with a push to get women back into the home.

I love the sense of place that Welty evokes so vividly. Her descriptions are incredibly sensory; you feel as though you are there. This book is one of the reasons why, when on my year abroad in the USA, I was determined to visit the southern states. Yet Welty captures the unease beneath the beauty - the relations between Black and white, the poverty/wealth disparity, the stratifications of class. It is a flawed but compelling world.

>40 laytonwoman3rd: 'I think the "character" that Welty was putting out there was really the family, not any one individual.' That is very helpful, Linda! I still didn't and don't love the novel, but that helps with my appreciation.

>42 Sakerfalcon: "I love the sense of place that Welty evokes so vividly. Her descriptions are incredibly sensory; you feel as though you are there." YES! That is something I experienced a lot in my reading, both in terms of setting and in terms of food. Very sensorily vivid.

It's been a bit quiet here. Is anyone still reading or planning to read the book? Or given up on it? I would love to hear some final thoughts and impressions as this month comes to a close.

I am still reading, but not making much progress. But then, I haven't been making much progress on any of my current books.

I had a bit of a reading funk, and this wasn't the book to get me out of it Laura, but do hope to finish it maybe next month. Happy for others to leave their closing thoughts though. I'll return when I've finished.

I finally finished this book and I can honestly say, that I found it boring. I rated it at 2 1/2 stars. There simply isn't any plot to it. It is merely a long description of a week of priviledged life in the Mississippi Delta. The Old South as it was. I was interested in reading a book by Welty because several years ago I had read What There Is To Say, We Have Said, which is a book of the letters of Welt to the author, editor, and friend William Maxwell. Welty sounded like a fascinating person in that book, so I wanted to read one of her novels. I am guessing that this was not one of her best novels, and I probably shouldn't have started out with this one. However, the temptation to share a reading with the group was too great, so I jumped in to read it with all of you. I am not going to give up on Welty as an author, as I do want to try reading Optimist's Daughter. As many accolades as Welty received in her lifetime, this novel can't be representative of her work?

>447 "this novel can't be representative of her work?" It is certainly representative of her style. She was best at writing short stories, and I think the shortcomings you perceive in Delta Wedding are partly a result of her working in a form that was not truly comfortable for her. There is no plot, that's true. It's a long vignette of family life, and a beautiful rendering of time and place. Novelistic, it is not. Inevitably, Welty is compared to Henry James, who I sometimes find tedious as all get-out. So I understand your reaction. Still, I have enjoyed every minute I've spent in Welty's world.