Losing Battles

Published on her sixty-first birthday, Eudora Welty's last novel, Losing Battles (1970), is today considered one of her best – as well as one of the defining works of comedic fiction in the American canon. It is also her longest novel, clocking in at over four hundred pages. The story's action takes place over the course of two mornings in 1930s Mississippi. Losing Battles is notable for being almost entirely written in dialogue; although, with twenty-eight characters participating to varying degrees in this dialogue, the story has been criticized for being difficult to follow. Despite the potential difficulties posed by its form, the strength of Welty's characterization and her comedic sense have consistently been praised, and Losing Battles was, in fact, the first of the legendary writer's novels to make the bestsellers lists.

The two days that comprise the entirety of Losing Battles take place in late August: one birthday and one funeral. The former is Granny Vaughn's ninetieth birthday; the latter, Miss Julia Mortimer's funeral. The extensive cast of characters is all relatives of Granny Vaughn, who come together in a great and raucous family reunion to celebrate their clan matriarch. On the occasions that she speaks, Granny Vaughn is a snappy and sassy character. Miss Julia, on the other hand, only appears in the form of (often conflicting) remembrances by different members of the clan, many of who had had her for a teacher.

The main source of excitement at Granny Vaughn's birthday party is the expected arrival of young Jack Renfro, Granny's great-grandchild. Among the birthday attendees' gossiping, it comes out that he has been in prison for more than a year over a matter of family honor. Jack had gotten into a fight with local boy Curly Stovall over possession of one of Granny's rings – Curly had taken the ring to resolve a debt. In the end, Judge Moody convicted Jack of aggravated battery, partially because, as a constitutionally honest and simple boy, Jack openly confessed to the brawl “and then some.” This was a blow for his branch of the family, as Jack was their major breadwinner. When he finally arrives, there's much commotion about his return, and the hope he brings to the family. His young wife, Gloria, is especially excited. She has with her their daughter, Lady May, whom Jack has never met as she was born during his incarceration.



As it turns out, Jack has skipped jail to be at the funeral – even though he was slated to be released the next day. On his way to the gathering from jail, he does the good deed of helping dislodge a man's car from a ditch. That man, it is eventually revealed, is Judge Moody – the very judge who condemned Jack to prison. Jack doesn't learn this until he is at the reunion, however. Upon learning the news, Jack, incensed, decides to go and cancel out his good deed with a bad one. Gloria, with Lady May in her arms, accompanies Jack on this mission; they are almost hit by the Judge in his car. Swerving to miss them, he ends up just barely balanced on a mysterious signpost posted at the top of a cliff. Jack's opinion flips again, and he resolves to help the Judge get his car down, in recompense for not running over his wife and child – but he can't do it right that moment. Retrieving the Judge and his wife, he brings them back to the reunion.

When they return to Granny's birthday celebration, talk turns to Gloria, Jack's wife, who is Miss Julia's successor. She is also Jack's former teacher – Jack having been one of the (very) elder students in the class. They fell in love and married hastily the day he was locked up. The family isn't fond of Gloria, whose quiet city ways are seen to be aligned with the snooty Miss Julia; but after it is discovered that she may actually be Jack's cousin, and therefore one of the family, she is welcomed to the fold. Jack then goes to free the Judge's car, finally, from its precarious resting place – in a scene that is considered one of the finest in Welty's considerable comic oeuvre. The novel draws to a close with Miss Julia's funeral and ends, finally, with Jack and his little immediate family walking off together to begin the next chapter of their lives.

Welty explained the impetus behind writing a novel entirely through the statements of its characters: “I wanted to see if I could do something that was new for me: translating every thought and feeling into action and speech, speech being another form of action – to bring the whole life of it off through the completed gesture, so to speak. I felt that I’d been writing too much by way of description, of introspection on the part of my characters.”