Optimist's Daughter (Welty)

The Optimist's Daughter 
Eudora Welty, 1972
Knopf Doubleday
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679728832

Summary
The Optimist's Daughter is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying.

After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding of the past, herself, and her parents. (From the publisher.)