A Daring Life

A Biography of Eudora Welty

By: Carolyn J. Brown

Narrated by: Frances Fuller

Mississippi author Eudora Welty, the first living writer to be published in the Library of America series, mentored many of today's greatest fiction writers and is a fascinating woman, having lived the majority of the 20th century (1909-2001). Her life reflects a century of change and is closely entwined with many events that mark our recent history.

This biography follows this 20th-century path while telling Welty's story, beginning with her parents and their important influence on her reading and writing life. The chapters that follow focus on her education and her most important teachers; her life during the Depression and how her career, just getting started, is interrupted by World War II; and how she shows independence and courage through her writing during the turbulent civil rights period of the 1950s and 1960s.

After years of care giving and the deaths of all her immediate family members, Welty persevered and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for The Optimist's Daughter. Her popularity soared in the 1980s after she delivered the three William E. Massey Lectures to standing-room-only crowds at Harvard, and the lectures were later published as One Writer's Beginnings and became a New York Times best seller.

This biography intends to introduce listeners to one of the most significant women writers of the past century, a prolific author who transcended her Mississippi roots and wrote short stories, novels, and non-fiction that will endure for all time.

©2012 University Press of Mississippi (P)2012 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“A beautifully written portrait of Eudora Welty and her amazing life. This intimate look at Eudora Welty is a welcome addition her readers.” (William R. Ferris, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

“This book is full and insightful.” (Clyde Edgerton, author of The Night Train and Walking Away)

like a 5th grade book report

I live in mississippi…even now, for those who have never read one of her books, eudora welty is a big name.
sad to say this book was like listening to a 5th grade book report (ANYthing that was found in the research was relayed to the reader).
it turns out eudora was also interested in photography. the narrator kept saying ‘pitchers’ (for pictures)…so much so that I thought maybe I was mis-hearing. I backed up the audio and I was hearing correctly.

for a book that was mostly based in mississippi, it seems very logical that the narrator and audio producer would check out the pronunciation of unfamiliar towns….utica, MS, (u-ti-ca) was pronounced u-teee-ka.

i’m not unhappy to know a few things about miss welty, but this was a waste of a reading credit.

Enjoyed Eudora and the South.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this to a reader that enjoys learning about the author and reading about the south.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Eudora and her family

Which scene was your favorite?

When she had to change college due to the institution she enrolled in not taking her transcripts from MSCW(a girls college in Mississippi). Don't you know they regret that choice.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

How many friends she had and how active her life was in the south, though she didn't always share the same views, she found the good things.

Any additional comments?

I miss her. Best short stories I have ever read in my next choice on Audible.