Book Review: Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty

Delta Wedding transports the reader to a Mississippi plantation in the 1920s where beautiful and spoiled Dabney Fairchild is preparing for her wedding. As the family members gather, they bring with them their luggage, gifts for Dabney's wedding, and a new perspective to add to the family story. The Fairchild family is one that operates as though there are no other human beings inside or outside of the Mississippi Delta that can compare with their greatness. However, right off the bat you can tell that there is something bubbling just beneath the surface; and you have to know what it is.

Welty leaves little to the imagination when she describes the delta homes and the characters that inhabit them. She knows exactly how she wants Shellmound (the main Fairchild home) to look and is not shy about sharing it. She goes to great descriptive lengths to make sure that the reader sees what she has envisioned.

The relationships that exist between the family members and the secrets they seem to be hiding keep the pages turning. For example, the Fairchild women adore the prodigal son of the bunch, George. George married someone that they are convinced is far below his class, and he moves away to live in Memphis. When he returns to Mississippi, without his wife, the mysteries that surround his character are increased further. The circumstances that make up his role are complex enough to encompass its own novel.

Each of the Fairchild family members affects the reader in a different way. You want to be a mother to Laura the motherless cousin, you want to tell Shelly, the eldest unmarried daughter that there is life outside of Shellmound, and you simply want to take Dabney down a notch.

If you can get through the first fifty pages of Delta Wedding, which moves a bit slowly, the story will pick up the pace and you won't be disappointed. It is the desire to know the secrets of the Fairchild family that will keep the reader hooked. The readers will find themselves searching for the truth in the old family stories of the Fairchild's told after dinner, details from the inner monologues of the characters, and insight from the observations of the outsider cousin, Laura.

The Fairchild's are a big family and the best way to keep track of who is who in the family is to sketch out a rough family tree on a scratch sheet of paper. Once you have the characters straight on their relation to one another, the easier the story is to read.