Eudora Welty

Snowdie MacLain's husband returns from the dead to surprise the inhabitants of Morgana, Mississippi.

The Golden Apples

Sarah Sammis

Golden Apples is a novel by Eudora Welty that reads like a series of bizarre short stories with the same recurring characters set in a fictional town in Mississippi. Some readers may find it difficult because of its use of language (specifically nigger). Others may find it difficult just for it's odd prose. The chapters are not linear nor are obvious segues ever used to cue the reader in that a jump in time has taken place. There are also lots of characters with similar names making it easy to lose track of who has done what, when. If I were more drawn into the book I'd want to reread it to get the pieces I missed or misunderstood but frankly I'm just not captivated enough to want to do that right now.

The Golden Apples is an acutely observed, richly atmospheric portrayal of small-town life in Morgana, Mississippi. There's Snowdie, who has to bring up her twin boys alone after her husband, King MacLain, disappears one day, discarding his hat on the banks of the Big Black. There's Loch Morrison, convalescing with malaria, who watches from his bedroom window as wayward Virgie Rainey meets a sailor in the vacant house opposite. Meanwhile, Miss Eckhart the piano teacher, grieving the loss of her most promising pupil, tries her hand at arson. Each of them is captured in Eudora Welty's incisive, haunting prose, creating a moving and unflinching portrait of everyday life in the American Deep South. With a new Introduction by Paul Binding 'A great and generous achievement.' Jonathan Raban 'I doubt that a better book about 'the South' - one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life and its special tone and pattern - has ever been written.' New Yorker

Jade Flynn

This was an okay collection, for me it's hovering between two and three stars. I'm going to give Welty another try, I've had her recommended to me so much because of my love for Carson McCullers, so I'm not giving up on her just yet.

The Golden Apples

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