Eudora Welty and Mystery: Hidden in Plain Sight

In this revealing compendium, editors Agner, a PhD candidate in English at the University of Mississippi, and Pollack, the former president of the Eudora Welty Society, collect perspectives on how mystery novels influenced the work of the Pulitzer prize–winning Welty. Examinations of how such mystery novels as James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library echo in Welty’s fiction persuasively argue that the author “fooled with, alluded to, and innovated on the various mystery forms that she, as a reader, enjoyed.” Contributors point out Welty’s use of mystery tropes, as when Baylor University professor Sarah Gilbreath Ford highlights how The Optimist’s Daughter (1972) makes use of the “missing letters” cliché originated by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” and Pollack observes that Losing Battles (1970) subverts the “country house mystery” formula by setting the action in a rundown Mississippi “shotgun” house instead of the English manors traditionally associated with the trope. The prose is accessible throughout, though there is some repetition in subject matter from essay to essay (Tom Nolan’s “The Sleuth of Pinehurst Street” and Suzanne Marr’s “Confluence” both explore Welty’s friendship with and admiration of crime novelist Ross Macdonald). Still, Welty scholars will enjoy these well-argued pieces. (Jan.)