Edna Earle's Uncle Daniel Ponder is quite a character in the town of Clay, Mississippi: he carries a Stetson, dresses fit to kill in a snow white suit and is as good as gold - everyone will admit that. But the trouble with Uncle Ponder is he's as rich, as Croesus and a great deal too generous. He gave Edna Earle a hotel, and once he even tried to give away his own lot in a cemetery. But when his first marriage to Miss 'Teacake' Magee didn't work out, he needed someone else to give things to. So he married seventeen -year-old Bonnie Dee Peacock from a poor backwoods family who 'could cut hair and looked as though a good gust of wind might carry her off'. She was carried off, but not by the wind - and the result, related in Edna Earle's rattling tongue, is a masterpiece of comic absurdity:
A little hilarious, underrated gem. Welty can write, and it’s satire out of pure affection: all the characters with great big hearts of dark humor, endearingly zany, a shared ground with Faulkner at his funniest.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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22 May, 2012:
Finished reading
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22 May, 2012:
Reviewed