Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty (Harvest/HBJ, 1979)

 

This is a beguiling, and unusual novel, so unusual that it doesn't seem very much like a novel at all -- it's a long work of fiction with no plot, not even the semblance of one.  The entire books takes place over three or four days in, or in the near vicinity of, Shelllmound, a large cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta.  Shellmound is inhabited by three generations of the Fairchild family, with several other relatives living close by or visiting for the wedding that is at the novel's center. 

The Fairchilds are an impressively fertile clan, and so the cast of characters in this book seems to number in the thousands.  The main family in the house -- the Battle Fairchilds -- have eight children (a ninth is on the way) and Battle is one of eight siblings, all of whom, if alive, are gathered round for the wedding of Danby, Battle and his wife Ellen's second child.  (Danby's older sister Shelley is a bit overshadowed -- or overshone -- by her beautiful and vivacious younger sister.)  There are also several great aunts hanging around the action, and the many "Negroes" that work on the plantation, both in the fields and in the house, are featured in the book to the extent that they interact with the family (which is often and and seemingly very happily).

Welty is an amazingly good descriptive writer, and brings this whole world vividly  alive.  And she's as accomplished creating and describing people as she is with places.  Every one of the many (many!) characters in this book is distinct and fully present.  They complexly reveal themselves to the reader by their words, thoughts, and actions, not to mention their vivid physical presence.

The book begins with the arrival at Shellmound of Laura, a young cousin who lives in Jackson with her father.  Her mother, Battle's sister, has recently died and Laura and the Fairchilds are all still grieving.  Laura's exclusive point of view  that opens the book, and leads the reader to believe that this will be her story, is a ruse, for very quickly it shatters and the rest of the book is told from myriad perspectives, in a somewhat chaotic fashion that matches the excitement and tension in the house as the wedding approaches.

If there is a central character in this book, it isn't Dabney, the bride, but her mother, Ellen, who married Battle at a tender age and moved to the Delta from Virginia, which everyone agrees is a different, and lesser, world.  In addition to preparing her daughter's wedding, which is to be held in the house followed by a huge reception to which everyone in the Delta has (supposedly) been invited, Ellen must attend to the wants, needs, and fancies of  her eight children and many (many!) houseguests.  That she does all this with an unwavering good cheer and grace seems somewhat miraculous, and she becomes the book's hero, although no one in the book realizes or acknowledges this, not even Ellen herself.

One very odd thing about this book is the fact that although it is set in 1923 (it was published in 1945) it seems as if the Civil lWar has effected virtually no change in the socio-economic culture.  It is mentioned that there is a payroll for the plantation workers, the bills of which Great Aunt Mac laboriously irons every week, but otherwise it seems as if the plantation is functioning exactly as it did sixty years ago.  If it weren't for the mention of the payroll, one might think that all the people working for and serving the Fairchilds were slaves.

A rich, immersive, beautiful book.

 

Eudora Welty in 1946