In this short novel, the 1973 Pulitzer Prize winner, Eudora Welty, tells us the story of Laurel.

Laurel is a widow in her forties who returns to her hometown to take care of her sick father. It is a story of personal relationships, of feelings and emotions. A story of life and death.

I found the text extremely well-written and it was a great pleasure to read it. Unfortunately, the story, although interesting, didn't tell me much.

It is a quite good book that I liked, but not enough to recommend it.

Overall, the novel offers a glimpse into the complex world of human relationships and the challenges that come with them. However, it may not have the depth and substance that some readers are looking for. Despite this, Eudora Welty's writing style is engaging and captivating, making it a worthwhile read for those who enjoy literary fiction.

Una figlia torna a casa per accudire il padre malato e si confronta con la giovane e frivola matrigna.

In essence, this is the plot. There isn't a grand story here. Where are the plot twists? Where is that captivating prose that emulates the cinema full of zooms, suspensions, and gaudy descriptions of reflections on crystal vases? This is how literature is these days. It's so in vogue that we mistake it for good literature, forgetting that it's the act of storytelling itself that should suffice, if there's a good narrator. If the voice, born of liters of ink, was true.

There's no need to sicken the reader when the words evoke memories and states of mind. Laurel, the protagonist of the story, represents the reader himself because hers is a silent gaze. We follow her, waiting for her to take a stance, but she lives, melancholically sinking into the past, into what was once. And yet, there's someone who talks, and a lot: Fay, the father's new wife. Cunning towards those who don't understand that it's sacrilegious to spend one's birthday in the hospital, that no one will understand how much she has suffered, that the doctor misdiagnosed because it's just a minor illness that afflicts her husband. In short, an idiot.

The author is so good at creating silences full of meaning. There's something to say, in fact, to shout at Fay, but the silence doesn't mean fear. Instead, it means the impossibility of communicating with someone who isn't capable of understanding. I got angry while reading. I wanted the protagonist to destroy the silly and querulous Fay because she represents the bigoted South America and is at the same time a human type. How many Fays have I known! There's never too much silence to signify the impossibility of communicating with someone who is as vain and shallow as a puddle. The ending will mark a turning point in the story, a confrontation rich in words and emotions.

Eudora Welty has a warm voice and a sober writing style, but like O'Connor, she doesn't judge. In this way, she acts on the reader, making him a participant in a private story. The descriptions are delicate and moving: small pictures of nature that, like in certain shots of the first Malick, serve to create a discrepancy in the lived time between the calendar of emotions and the calendar of facts.

This is what makes Literature. It can talk to us about nothing for hours, but it makes us rich in all the vast phenomenology of human emotions, making them vibrate within us.

B.R.A.CE. 2018 is a book that was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize \\n  \\n    and it actually won!\\n  \\n

Here is a friendly warning in case this particular book falls into your hands:
"DON'T START WITH THE FOREWORD" Spoiler alert for the whole book! Leave it for the end as a wonderful epilogue that, fortunately for its existence, will help you (and it truly helped me) to better understand the text you read.

I think for this specific book to "speak" to the reader, the reader must have lived through some events in his life, mainly unpleasant ones (loss).
It talks about the demythologization of parents, about letting go of the past and not allowing it to define your future, about understanding who you are, where you want to reach and what you need to overcome.
I admit that with the foreword/epilogue I was able to better appreciate the text, what it wanted to say and where it wanted to take me.

This novella presents a much heavier and darker mood than what I have grown accustomed to from Welty. There is scarcely anything that could be misconstrued as humor. In fact, I felt a total abhorrence for the character, Fay, which is also a departure from my expectations of Welty. Her characters are generally likable to some extent.

Of course, the subject matter of death and its aftermath is extremely serious, and Welty tackles it head-on. I felt deeply sorry for Laurel and the complete loss she endures. Even with all the kind people in the town who care for her, she has suffered a loss that cannot be easily comforted.

Perhaps, having lost my own parents, I experienced this on a visceral level. I am grateful, and have always been, that I was not an only child, so my loss was fully shared by others, and my memories were still shared in a way that no outsider could ever understand.

She is a remarkable writer. There is a reason she received the Pulitzer, although this would not be my pick for her finest work.