Similar The Ponder Heart, Delta Wedding, The Golden Apples, The Optimist's Daughter, A Curtain of Green | ||
Losing Battles is the last novel written by Eudora Welty. It was released on April 13, 1970. The novel's setting is two days—a Sunday and Monday morning—in a 1930s farm in Mississippi. Losing Battles was her first novel to make the best seller lists, to the surprise of Welty.
Contents
Development
Welty wrote the novel as a challenge to herself. In an interview for the The Paris Review, she said:
Welty set the novel in the 1930s because she wanted to write about "a family who had nothing" and the Depression provided that opportunity. Originally, Welty had not planned on writing a novel, in the Paris Review interview she said "I’m a short-story writer who writes novels the hard way, and by accident".
The first edition of the novel was published on Welty's 61st birthday.
Reception
Reception of the novel was generally very positive, with many critics praising its "geniality and humour". New York Times reviewer and academic James Boatwright gave strong praise to the novel, calling it "a beautiful and valuable novel" which had an "overwhelming effect [that] is comic—lyrical and touching." Joyce Carol Oates was not as enthusiastic, describing the novel as entertainment, and less successful at probing the "psychological concerns" of the characters. Scholar Larry J. Reynolds challenged that assessment, noting that "beneath its entertaining surface [is an] intense struggle for survival [...] subtly and carefully told."