When Laurel Hand, a Chicago widow, goes home to Mississippi to visit her sick father, she discovers that he is now married to Fay, a woman younger than herself. Quiet and demure Laurel and the very crass Fay unsurprisingly take an immediate dislike to each other, and their clashes are heightened by competition for the Judge's affections and estate. The contrasts between Laurel and Fay are about not only about personality but also class and background--and Eudora Welty explores the situation with her usual acumen and buoyant wit. THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER, a spin-off from one of her New Yorker stories, won a Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 1972.