Losing Battles

by Eudora Welty

Three generations of Granny Vaughn's descendants gather at her Mississippi home to celebrate her 90th birthday. Possessed of the true storyteller's gift, the members of this clan cannot resist the temptation to swap tales.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Southern, Literary Fiction, Southern Gothic, American, Novels

436 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Eudora Alice Welty was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America.

Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived a significant portion of her life in the city's Belhaven neighborhood, where her home has been preserved. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, where she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.

During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her all over the state of Mississippi photographing people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs are One Time, One Place and Photographs.

Welty's true love was literature, not photography, and she soon devoted her energy to writing fiction. Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the legendary and oft-anthologized stories "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Petrified Man," and "A Worn Path." Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story, and was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, where, despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of her hometown.
Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 92, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson.

Excerpted and adopted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 4 out of 5]

During early June, I read one of Eudora Welty’s short stories titled "A Worn Path". The beauty of the prose in that piece compelled me to seek out a full-length piece in which to immerse myself. Losing Battles, set in the summer of 1930’s Mississippi, grabbed my attention and seemed like the perfect lazy, summer day read. Unfortunately, my June was anything but lazy and I think some day I will re-read this one when I can sit down and absorb the luscious words that really seemed to pop right off the pages of this book. Descriptions like this – "They walked through waist-high spires of cypress weed, green as strong poison, where the smell of weed and the heat of sun made equal forces, like foes well matched or sweethearts come together." Or, something short and to the point like this – "The distant point of the ridge, like the tongue of a calf, put its red lick on the sky."

When I first finished reading this novel, I was a bit overwhelmed - not because it was difficult to read, but because there were so many stories told through the medium of Granny Vaughn’s ninetieth birthday party. This could have been almost an epic family saga if told over the course of even more pages. Now that a few days have passed and life has settled down a bit, I have been able to sift through all of the stunning passages that I happened to highlight along the way. I now realize what a splendid story Welty created by weaving together all of the strands of Granny’s family history! Granny has one of these sprawling families with which I really have no personal experience. Nevertheless, these multigenerational reunions completely enthrall me when I think about so many brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins coming together to not only celebrate the life of this remarkable matriarch, but also to reminisce about their own accomplishments, longings, hardships and sorrows. Even a few family secrets are revealed – some of them quite shocking! I thought of this family much as Welty described the magnificent and venerable tree in the yard.

"The tree looked a veteran of all the old blows, a survivor. Old wounds on the main trunk had healed leaving scars as big as tubs or wagon wheels, and where the big lower branches had thrust out, layer under layer of living bark had split on the main trunk in a bloom of splinters, of a red nearly animal-like."

If you are interested in reading a story with a fast, engaging plot, you won’t really find it here. Not a whole lot actually happens over the span of just a twenty-four or so family reunion/birthday party. What does happen is somewhat stretched out across the course of this 400+ page novel. If you seek superb character development, well you may not be satisfied. If you enjoy old-fashioned storytelling and like to imagine yourself sitting in the thick of a family as each member shares an anecdote or two from their personal lives, then you may very well delight in this. If you savor words that sparkle and nearly come alive on the page, then you should give Welty a try. If you do, I suggest doing so in the manner I wish I had – on the front porch with an icy cold glass of lemonade or sweet tea at hand and little to no interruptions. Losing Battles rates a 3.5 from me and after some reflection deserves a rounding up to 4 stars.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't write a proper review of this book because it was too wonderful. I entered this family reunion, stayed until it was over, listened to every story, and found something to love about every single character, even the ones already dead and buried. I had chicken pie and fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon, and lemonade to wash it down. I laughed at old jokes and heard family secrets long buried, played with babies, got my heart broken by old maid aunts with no real home, and marveled at Granny on her 90th birthday. I hated to leave them all, but it was late and time to go.

Too wonderful for words, and surpassed "Delta Wedding" as my favorite Eudora Welty.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eudora Welty weaves a very Southern tale around a Mississippi family who are staging a family reunion that is also a celebration of the family’s oldest member, Granny Vaughn. This felt like going back in time and visiting the world of my childhood. My own extended family had an annual reunion at a small church in the mountains where my father was born, and I have sat through dinners that spread like the food was endless and heard the musings and memories of great-aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles, and cousins that were old enough to be my parents. I laughed, applauded the things that knit these people together, but felt the element of sadness that ran through many of these lives. Even those stories told with humor often dealt with subjects so serious that they altered lives forever.

Aside from the story, Eudora Welty might be one of the most beautiful descriptive writers I have ever come across. You could open this book to any random page and lift an amazing passage, which is what I am doing here:

The crowd was forming around three sides of the new grave hole. Where Mr. Comfort had been supposed to go was the last grave at the river end of the cemetery. At its back stood only an old cedar trunk, white against gray space. Its bark was sharp folded as linen, it was white as a tablecloth. Wreaths and sprays of spiky florist flowers from Ludlow--gladioli and carnations and ferns--were being stood on their wire frames around the grave, and the homemade offerings--the flower-heads sewn onto box lids and shirt cardboards and the fruit jars and one milk can packed with yard lilies and purple phlox and snow-on-the-mountain--were given room to the side.

I was literally standing at the grave and I could feel the respect and emotion that prompted those homemade offerings.

Welty treats with some very serious topics during the course of this novel. I wondered about the isolation that could exist in the midst of such a close community, about the lack of justice for some and the miscarriage of punishments for others. I was amazed by the ability this family showed to forgive and accept, and the sense that much of the acceptance arose from the almost fatalistic nature of life in such an environment.

This is my first Welty novel. She has been on my reading list for a long time. I will surely read more of her work at the first opportunity.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never been to a family reunion like the one for Granny Vaughn's 90th birthday. Sadly, all my grandparents but one died before I was born and the last died before I was 10. But I've been to numerous Christmas open houses, Thanksgiving get-togethers, family weddings and funerals. And these all give rise to some of what Welty describes in Losing Battles (without the car on the cliff or various animals).

Losing Battles is such a warm-hearted, though occasionally biting, story of a large family reunion to celebrate Granny's 90th birthday and the return of her grandson, Jack, from his time away. There are stories told that cause laughter, embarrassment, perhaps a short brawl or strong disagreement. There are secrets revealed, new and old. And there is much food consumed by all. There are babies to be loved by the older people and new family members to be put through their paces. Being new to an old family can be a hard place to live.

And there is preaching! Now that is something that never happened at my family events and I loved listening to the Vaughns, the Renfros, and others commenting on this year's preacher who could not live up to last year's--Grandpa. But then I'm a Northern girl who isn't experienced in that sort of preaching.

This reunion is separated from me by geography and almost a century, being set in 1930s Mississippi. But I felt I was there from the immediacy of Welty's writing, the beauty of the descriptions of the landscapes, the images she produced of her people. I do recommend this book to all who would like a Southern experience with feeling.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The entirety of this book takes place over the course of a two day family reunion (I suppose it's also a birthday party, but the reunion part shines through), there is a hefty amount of present day action, but the majority of the book is composed of family discussions (with many, many participants) or family storytelling (also with many, many participants) which all have this kind of mythifying tall tale feel to them, but the present day action is also kind of over the top where it's difficult to truly ascertain what's been embellished over time, and what is fact. The multiple voices are incredibly well done, and allow for a great variety of stories and tones and personalities to inhabit the book. Much of the book is pretty funny as well, though it intermingles with shades of melancholic nostalgia, and good hearted tenderness.

There we go, all five of Eudora Welty's books read in this past week. Some thoughts about that:

1. She never wrote the same book twice, not even close. They all have some portion that overlaps with another (more in feel or tone than in any real plot based way) but each is completely distinct.
2. The Optimist's Daughter was her best, and I really only see that having read the other four; the skill she brought to that book is really evident viewed through the various skills on display in her other books. It is a massively compressed book, but it's like that because she trimmed away everything but the essence, and yet managed to capture a great deal of complexity at the same time.
3. There is a familial gentleness in almost everything she wrote - her books can have teeth at times, but even in that it's because it's what the book or character required, and never feels to be placed out of meanness.
4. She could be really damn funny.

Still need to read the short stories. Waiting for them to be delivered...

[Kim Kaso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miss Eudora packs more into 24 hours in a book than most people can fit into a lifetime. A family reunion and a homecoming serve as a frame for a multitude of stories, some new some told every year, as families do. A young bride is fighting a losing battle trying to separate her husband from his multitudinous family, the husband is fighting losing battles with the town storekeeper, and then there is the car in the tree...settle into her world and be ready to laugh and smile at the absurdities of life. Highly recommended.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winning While Losing

Published in 1970, "Losing Battles" was the fourth of Eudora Welty's (1909 -- 2001) five novels and her first since 1954. Welty worked on and off again on this novel for fifteen years, with long periods of inactivity to care for her mother and brothers. Unlike her other novels, "Losing Battles" is lengthy. When her publisher demanded substantial cuts and edits to the text, Welty took her manuscript elsewhere and had the book published as she wanted it. The novel received great critical and popular acclaim upon publication.

The book is set in 1931, the midst of the Depression, in the hills of northeast Mississippi near a town called Banner. The scene for the book is a hardscrabble farm which is the site of a family reunion in celebration of the 90th birthday of the family matriarch, Elvira Jordan Vaughn or "Granny". Within the year, Granny's husband had died and her children also are dead. Granny's six living grandchildren (one is deceased) and their spouses attend as do five of Granny's great grandchildren of her granddaughter Beulah and Beulah's husband, Ralph Renfro. Many other guests attend the reunion, some uninvited and by surprise. The major character in the book is Beulah and Ralph's oldest son Jack. Jack had been serving two years at the notorious Parchman prison and escaped one day ahead of his release to attend the reunion. Jack has a young wife, Gloria, who had been teaching school and a two year old baby daughter, Lady May Renfro, who Jack meets for the first time at the reunion and instantly adores.

The book consists of a series of short stories told by the family about themeselves and others. The stories are full of detail and recounted in dialogue. The stories develop the many characters and their surroundings intimately and closely. Welty presents these poor characters and their difficult lives unsentimentaly but with love. The reader grows to love them as well. Many interrelated themes appear throughout the book rather than a developed plot. A major theme is Jack returning from Parchman and attempting to establish himself. His wife Gloria, raised in an orphanage and of uncertain parentage, struggles with her feelings for Jack's family. She realizes that much of her life will be devoted to trying to keep Jack out of further trouble. A good deal of the book concerns a character who does not appear, a long-time and rigorous schoolteacher, Julia Mortimer, who characterized herself as Saint George trying to slay the dragon of ignorance in Banner. County Judge Oscar Moody, who had sentenced Jack to Parchman, and his wife Maud Eva also find their way unwillingly to the reunion.

I found an exchange of letters between Welty and her longtime friend and editor William Maxwell good in characterizing and understanding "Losing Battles." In a letter to Welty dated August 10, 1969, Maxwell described the book as "a comic masterpiece" and wrote:

" One of the things that moved me particularly is how rich they all are in their poverty. I believed in the poverty, all right, but the effect seemed to be that everybody shone with Everlasting Grace, which they would not have had if they hadn't been so poor. And how they got to be poor -- That series of losing battles -- is also haunting. They are on the way down, so far on the way, that they are also on the way up.... Their troubles are I feel sure as immortal as they are endless. They are in for a long space of being loved by people they can't know anything about, who know everything there is to know, practically, about them. How did you do it?

Welty's August 15, 1969 reply to Maxwell also helps understand the novel. After recounting the lengthy period of time it took to write the novel, Welty wrote:

"But more than that (the time) is the reality of that central element in the people that live in rural Mississippi -- it's there to be seen by all -- that character of the relish of life and its tales in the face of poverty and all it's done to them, and, heaven knows, relish of ignorance on some parts along with pride and zest.... I really love these people -- the real ones and the story ones -- even when I sometimes want to shake them and beat them on the head as fellow Mississippians."

This book is full of Welty's sharp eye for detail, masterful storytelling, and comedy in the pathos of the everyday. With the close detail and full description of short scenes and incidents, the book, in spite of its length, suggests that Welty's gifts were more in the direction of the short story and short novel. Portions of this book drag, although Welty was right to insist on her text without large cuts. Some of the stories lack the subtlety and shades of meaning of Welty's other novels. But the book is easier to read than most of Welty's shorter novels. While rooted in its place, it captures something of the shared experiences of people. With patience, reading this book will be a joy.

The quotations from Maxwell and Welty in this review are derived from a collection of the Maxwell-Welty correspondence, "What there is to Say we have Said" edited by Suzanne Marrs.

Robin Friedman

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Yep, that’s that Yazoo clay.”…

… A Southerner’s simple explanation of the common destruction caused by the continual movement of Mississippi’s soil. If you weren’t from ‘these parts’ and did not understand why a house leaned or a pool held no water, you might also have difficulty with Eudora Welty’s “Losing Battles”.

Eudora’s first novel – written [very late:] after she had long established herself and her readers in that unique prose style of describing language, characters, and human nature in Southern relationships – is a work with which the author took decades. It is the ‘Morgana’ theme gathered round a daylong family reunion, also the celebrating of Granny’s 90th birthday.

I look upon it as a beautiful benediction given by an author ‘comfortable in her writer’s skin’; speaking with a slightly fading voice of the images that gave birth to her many most popular pieces. I rate this work low because family strife is not a subject that thrills me, no matter the skill of the writer.

I do not suggest for a moment that only those enthralled followers of Eudora’s writings read this novel. I encourage all comers to read all of Eudora’s writings; however, understanding Yazoo clay will be easier than grasping the dialogue and observations in “Losing Battles”. Readers new to Miss Eudora would do best by reading her “Petrified Man” or “Why I Live at the P.O.” before embarking on this novel.

[Jorge Cienfuegos]

Abandonado un poco más allá de la mitad del libro. No le doy puntuación porque me parece injusto a falta de doscientas y pico páginas, pero de ser, sería un uno o uno y medio.

La novela está muy bien escrita y aunque hay muchos personajes todos parecen estar bastante bien caracterizados, y en un principio parecen bastante atractivos. Está llena de diálogos con notas excéntricas que se supone que tendrían que hacer el libro dinámico y divertido, pero... no. Le he dado muchas oportunidades para que la trama "empiece", pero he llegado a la conclusión de que no debe de haberla, y normalmente no me importaría leer una novela de personajes sin trama (¡al contrario!), pero es que esta gente actúa de forma muy errática y dice y hace cosas que me dejan muy confuso todo el tiempo. Al final me quedo con una sensación de estar perdido en todo momento, no sé si por la novela en sí, por la traducción o por mi culpa; y leer casi 600 páginas de personajes yendo de acá para allá no es muy placentero si estás todo el rato con cara de "¿y ahora qué hacen?".

Un desastre, vamos. Ya había leído a Welty anteriormente y el resultado había sido similar, así que me inclino a pensar que no estamos hechos para entendernos.

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this novel casts a spell over its readers, its very repetitive and its voices shift where there is too much going on. It gave me a bit of a headache. But Welty is excellent at conveying bittersweet themes such as lost love, and the yearnings of small town provincial life.

[Mela]

I really wanted to read it. But after two approaches I am giving up. I will try another book by Eudora Welty, I haven't read any yet. I found out this one is one of the hardest to read. Perhaps, someday, I will try "Losing Battles" again, after a few other Welty's books.

[Katherine Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very well written but tough to get through at times. The family reunion dynamic is relatable and nostalgic. Some of the twists were incredibly surprising, and the pages were sprinkled with some pleasant comedy. In regard to the writing, Eudora Welty's metaphors were unique and thought provoking, and her dialogue was realistic and well executed.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read something by Eudora Welty for ages, and finally picked up this book. I had a hard time getting into it, I think because it took me a while to really be able to hear in my head the rhythms of the dialogue. I'm not from the Deep South, so the speech idioms and rhythms weren't familiar.
Once I got into it, I really liked it. In a way it reminded me of Tom Sawyer, in they way that situations arose that were both absurd and believable, though the natural progression of strong characters going about their daily lives. I never laughed out loud while reading it, but I smiled a lot.
The whole story takes place during an extended family gathering over a 2-day period in a small rural Mississippi community in the 1930's. People don't have much (or any) money, but they have strength and pride in their community and family.
Multiple story lines are running simultaneously, and they include several ongoing feuds (between Methodists and Baptists, between the shopkeeper and Jack, between a woman and her former mentor), minor mysteries (who are the parents of the orphan? what is Uncle Nathan repenting for?), and the central drama: what will happen to the stranded car?
I found the book very satisfying, and will be reading more Eudora Welty soon.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard book to get into largely because the first page or so contain some of Welty's worst writing (an over-reliance on similes and an overall forced feel) and the next 20 pages intoduce the reader to so many characters so quickly that it's easy to get bogged down. After the rough start it gets quite good, even though not a whole lot happens, as the whole novel covers just a day (or two?) of a massive depression-era family reunion. Not quite the masterpiece Eudora I imagine wanted it to be, but still required reading for fans of hers. It's evocation of a festive dusty hot August day tinged with sadness and strife is unparalleled.

[Dustincecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a whirlwind.

I found this book slowed my reading, just to try to keep track of everything going on- which is crazy, considering the book only covers a day and the following morning. Ms. Welty didn't leave many moments for contemplative quiet... I wonder if that's why that one uncle left town- for some space with this thoughts.

Anyone who likes gossipy rambles shouldn't have any trouble getting into this.

Funny too!

[José · Rating 2 out of 5]

En una historia con tantos personajes es fácil perderse, pero no ha sido este mi caso. Tras aprendérmelos, aprecio la valía de Eudora Welty a la hora de caracterizarlos en su prosa. Una reunión familiar para celebrar el cumpleaños de la abuela Vaughn, en la que una serie de sucesos salpican la trama. Hay que leerla poco a poco.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful presentation of basically ONE DAY in the life of a poor Southern family during the Depression. It's the annual family reunion, and Granny's birthday. Welty writes superb dialogue, and every few pages, at least, offers a unique metaphorical description. A story full of humanity.

[Mark Lisac · Rating 5 out of 5]

If someone had claimed to me that it was possible to write an absorbing 436-page novel made up of a day and a half of conversation, interspersed with moments of slapstick action, I would have bet against it — and lost. Welty delivered a comic tour de force here. The structure resembles the basic frame of Delta Wedding and The Optimist's Daughter — a large family gathering occasioned by a significant event. But Losing Battles pushes dialogue as far as it can go while steeping the talk and the accompanying action in sustained, good-natured humour. However, the fun hints at the less consoling realities of life for people in the time and place of the story. And the themes seem intended to be applicable in other times and places. The best anyone on the losing end of battles can do is take Ms Gloria's attitude: keep thinking about the future.

[Jodi Guerra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adore Eudora Welty, but this work is a very difficult read. With a cast of over 20 named characters, it was difficult to get into a rhythm with the work. The descriptions are wonderful, but at the end of the book, I still wasn't quite sure I knew what Welty was saying. Several episodes in the tale left me scratching my head. (What was with the watermelon baptism of sorts with Gloria?)

I have spent many summers in Mississippi, and so I could very much relate to the extended family aspects, the prodigious numbers of cousins, the simple joys of food and family, the story upon story. Is there anything better than listening to your relatives tell a fun story, cracking everyone up? The comedic parts were delightful. I miss the comedy of yesteryear which didn't rely on curse words and vulgarities. This is simple but playful comedy, and it's no less effective.

I'd love to know if your families all have a Jack? I think most do, the golden-boy who will save the farm and whom everyone loves. I think most have an Aunt Cleo too, the one who "marries in" and just doesn't seem to get it.

It was hard to get going with "Losing Battles," but I'm glad I persevered. I think this is one of those works which will continue to percolate inside and provide insights much later.

[Chris Gager · Rating 4 out of 5]

My edition has 416 pages... The plan for now is to alternate between my "to read" list and my awesome collection of rescued books from the town transfer station. This one is from the latter category. Never have read a full novel by Miss Eudora. A few short stories is all. This one's pretty entertaining so far as the author has set for herself the daunting task of setting her story in the midst of an unfolding family reunion. There are so many voices! Apparently there are few if any black people up in the NE hills of Mississippi. Just a lot of poor white farmers. It's the 1930's but I'll bet it's not all that different even today. I suppose they all have televisions but still not much money. EW's approach is considerably lighter than Faulkner or McCarthy but she's every bit as "regional" as those two. Calder Willingham and Erskine Caldwell would fall somewhere in between I guess. I wonder if Marilynne Robinson named her character Jack Boughton from "Home" and "Gilead" as a tribute to this book and it's author? Her Jack is the prodigal while this book's Jack is more Christ-like. One issue for me: everybody at this huge reunion is screaming and yelling at each other. Mostly in good nature but even though I can't literally hear it my brain is getting stressed. Weird... Not the same edition I have which is a paperback from 1978 - Vintage Books. Originally published in 1970. And yes, she starts out with an avalanche of similes. But that lets up after a while.
Day two... Not much going on but the hot dry August weather and the neverending parade of colorful characters. Three set pieces so far: the arrival of the relatives, the uncertain fate of Mrs. Judge's Buick and currently the big reunion feast. I think the Reverend is still speaking but everyone's digging in anyway. Mostly it's all a set-up for lots of story-telling and the word-painting of the social, historical, and natural setting. Miss Eudora likes to get into her descriptions of the natural world as much as the human one. Similar to Willa Cather and SE Nebraska. So... is this all just a bit overwrought and overwritten? I guess you could say that. My feeling is that it's important to accept what you're getting and hang in there if at all possible with any book that's a challenge but might seem worthy. This book can be challenging at times. I'm still confused as to the precise physical/geographical relationship between Banner Top and the road. And it does matter(sort of)! There can be so much going on verbally at one time, in one moment, that it's head-scratching. I keep having to go back and re-read s-l-o-w-l-y and mindfully. Even then the details don't always add up. One quote of so many to chose from:
"Uncle Nathan remained standing at Granny's back, his hand on her chair, a fixture there from now on. He had hair streaked with white, tangled and falling to his shoulders. His old coat and pants had been patched again on top of last year's patches and, though neat, had been put on rough-dry. He gave off a steam that spoke of the river and now and then of tar. His face was brown and wrinkled as the meat of a Stuart pecan.
"'You a bachelor?' asked Aunt Cleo."(ha-ha... no shit lady)!
Sorry to all you Goodreads complainers out there a-raggin' on Miss Eudora but cain't everbody write like that. Funny, and moving...
Day three... The supper's about over and the women have gathered to talk with a couple of men allowed. They reminisce about Miss Julia the schoolteacher and how they all resisted her attempts to educate them. At this point one can see some themes coming through. One's about how these people must buy into the whole family system and history. It gives them strength even as it limits the possibilities for their lives. They're proud of resisting Miss Julia's attempts to make their lives better and more "expanded". They don't have much regard for her. She's not one of them. We get into Gloria's story, a pretty grim and serious business but again the family emotional environment is somewhat crude and unsympathetic. Strange...
Day four... I only read a bit this weekend as I was sports-absorbed(NFL draft). The slow revealing of Miss Julia's story continues as Lexie and the Judge have much to contribute. A cautionary tale about getting old in the company of unsympathetic, closed-minded, emotionally limited (non-family)people. The meaning of the title becomes clearer as it applies to the teacher's life and therefore the author's as well since she was a teacher.
Damned computer just lost my final entry...
Day five and done... A tough book to rate as it comes in two distinct parts: one is the backwoods slapstick stuff with the car and the other is the serious family story stuff and the stuff about the teacher's life. It's part Faulkner and part "The Dukes of Hazzard". By the end it also reminded me of "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and was the only place I can recall other than "Outer Dark" that used the word "chap" for "baby". 3.75 rounds up to 4 stars.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book from my cousin at our famiy reunion which took place in Mississippi in the early 2000's, so close to 20 years ago. It took a pandemic for me to pick it up and I was determined to finish it, though it was difficult.

Coincedentally, Losing Battles takes place at a family reunion in about a day. There were so many family members to keep track of, and to make matters worse, they frequently went off on conversational tangents, which I found hard to follow, or to care about. All families are complicated, but the Beechum/Renfro clan was particularly hard for me to track. At this annual reunion, Grandma is celebrating her birthday, possibly her last, and her great grandson, Jack, is coming home from Parchman Prison to his wife and young daughter, who he has never seen. Matters are complicated when the judge who sentenced Jack travels through their town of Banner with his wife in their Buick. Judge Moody's car first goes into a ditch (and Jack rescues them), then ends up on a mountain ledge. I had a hard time following how the car came to the ledge and stayed there into the night.

Though I did not care for the seemingly never-ending dialogue, I did enjoy the descriptive passages of the story.

"Stand still: your answer always comes along." (154)

"She read in the daytime...And that was a thing surpassing strange for a well woman to do." (294)

"Around then the white tablecloths, clotted with shadows, still held the light, and so did old men's white shirts, and Sunday dresses with their skirts spread round or in points on the evening hill. The tables in their line appeared strung and hinged like the Big Dipper in the night sky, and the diamonds of the other cloths seemed to repeat themselves for a space far out on the deep blue of dust that now reached to Heaven." (306)

"The cloud showed motion within, like an old transport truck piled high with crate on crate of sleepy white chickens. The moon, like an eye turned up in a trance, filmed over and seemed to turn loose from its track and to float sightless. First floating veils, then coarse dark tents were being packed across the sky, then the heavy, chained-together shapes humped after them." (367)

[Cristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

"De pronto, el mundo de la luz de la luna se apagó; unas luces duras como el canto de una pala aparecieron en el techo del porche y del pasadizo, atravesando la casa del todo y dejándolos en una isla sobre la tierra negra, en medio de ninguna parte, sin nadie más a quien recurrir que a ellos mismos."

La historia que narra Eudora, es como esa capa de polvo y deterioro que envuelve las viejas fotografías de familia. Es difícil adentrarse de lleno en esas historias que, por la complejidad social y cultural, nos resultan arcaicas y lejanas; cognitiva o sensorialmente nos falta algo. Aún así, hay algo de bello y magistral en la manera de escribir de Eudora. Algo sencillo que nos acerca y nos une. Seguiré leyendo más, escudriñando bajo esa espesa capa de polvo, rasgando hasta encontrar el reflejo con uno mismo.

[Raelene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welty's prose is unabashedly beautiful, her descriptions lyrical and poetic. And, though the action of this novel occurs over only a day and a half, at a 1930s backwood Mississippi family reunion, you can't come away without a sense of a truly grand epic, a universal human drama, a pattern repeated again and again through the centuries and an appreciation for Welty's genius as a regional writer and a crafter of language.

[Tali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta mujer escribe de maravilla. No es un libro que se lea de un tirón pero una vez que estas dentro ya no es fácil salir. Los personajes son antológicos, excéntricos y algunas situaciones de lo más disparatadas. Todo ello no exento de humor y de una dureza propia de la vida de los protagonistas pero narrado con sensibilidad, con ternura. Derrotas que se tornan victorias porque así debe de ser, así son ellos.
"Parece que sea interminable lo que uno puede perder y pese a todo seguir viviendo"

[Jim Leckband · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ostensibly this book takes place over less than 2 days in a Northeast Mississippi rural county in the Depression. In reality it takes place in the memories, tales, lies and reluctant truths of the extended Vaughn/Renfro family over the last few decades as they have a family reunion. Add to it the farcical elements of a band of misfits trying to get down a car hanging on a tree over a river cliff and you end up with a comic masterpiece.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has been slow reading for me. I had it with me to read in the waiting room at the doctors. The next day, I couldn't find it and thought perhabs I had left it in the waiting room. When I found the book next to my bed, I was disappointed to find it! After reading to page 188, I am not reading any further.

The author write lovely prose. However, it goes on and on and on. Pages and pages of description with very little action to move the plot along.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You can profit from knowing that you needn't be ashamed to crawl-to keep crawling,to be proud to crawl where you can't crawl any further. Then you find yourself flat on your back-look whats carried you another mile. From flat on your back you may not be able to lick the world but at least you can keep it from licking you."
What can I say, it hit me in my guts and my brains.

[Denise Eggleston · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like Losing Battles. I've read several of Eudora Welty's books and liked them all. Welty had a magnificent way with words and really understood the South. This is certainly true of this book, but she floods the pages with truly boring dialogue. There are some truly good things here, but not enough to justify more than two stars.

[Clément · Rating 5 out of 5]

a family reunion in Mississippi. Everyone - aunts, uncles, granny, the siblings, the young wife, the baby - is expecting Jack to come back home on the day of Granny's 90ieth birthday. Celebration starts and everyone's got plenty to tell... about the family's story.

[Jane Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a train track where a Coca Cola truck was hit by the Nashville Rocket. No one like her, though there is Wodehouse: "he gave me a look that would have split logs in the teak forests of Borneo."