The Optimist’s Daughter
Year: 1972
Author: Eudora Welty
Length: 239 minutes / 3.98 hours
The Optimist’s Daughter is yet another short piece of Pulitzer Prize winning prose that I failed to connect with. Sure, the writing is solid, if not flowery at times. The problem with these kinds of books (Housekeeping also coming to mind here) is that I don’t feel it has anything significant to say. Contrasting Chicago from New Orleans is so common that culture clash is an inevitable trope for any character who ventures into the south from their home in the north.
Family drama always seems to attract prize-winning status. Here, we see the titular optimist’s daughter as she grapples with the death of her optimist father. The death of a patriarch always brings out the worst in people as they try to get as much of the remaining estate they can get their hands on. Not that the titular character isn’t without faults either, as her judgmental nature of her origins only goes away after reminding herself that it was only her close family who was awful and that most people are generally pleasant.
And perhaps what strikes me most with these kinds of Pulitzer winners is how forgettable they are. I barely remembered anything about this book before I finally sat down to write this review. It’s mostly vague feelings at this point, and none of them were strong enough to leave a significant impression on me. This may be due to how short this book was, which was both a blessing and a curse. Ultimately, if you ask me in a few years whether I’ve read this book, I probably couldn’t tell you if I did or not.
A short and forgettable Pulitzer winner, I give The Optimist’s Daughter 3.0 stars out of 5.
