"THE NICKNAME of the train was the Yellow Dog is real name was the Yazoo-Delta. It was a mixed train. The day was the 10th of September, 1923 afternoon. Laura McRaven, who was nine years old, was on her first journey alone."
So begins Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty's portrait of a large and clamorous Southern family living on their plantation in the Mississippi Delta, and into whose midst is thrust Laura McRaven, whose mother has just died.
When Laura arrives, the Fairchilds are preparing for the marriage of Dab-ney, not the oldest but the prettiest of the Fairchild girls. Drama leads to drama, revelation to revelation. The result is a sometimes-riotous portrait of a Southern family and the motherless child who learns to become one of them. Eudora Welty's first novel is an American classic.
"By all odds the best thing [Eudora Welty] has written." -The Atlantic
"Presents the essence of the Deep South and does it with infinite finesse." The Christian Science Monitor
"The portrait she gives us . .. is nothing short of wonderful, and the way she gets hold of the particular quality of Southern speech, with its nuances, obliquities, and special kind of humor, is a minor triumph." -The New Yorker
EUDORA WELTY (1909-2001) was one of the most important and beloved American writers of the twentieth century. A master of the short story form, Welty also wrote novels, novellas, and essays, and was the winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize, among other literary awards.
