Because One Writer’s Beginnings centers on Welty’s memories of the events and persons that have influenced her, it is not a conventional autobiography. There is no chronological narrative of main events, though as a whole, the book is roughly chronological. Instead, she follows certain themes, showing their emergence in her experiences or tracing them to beginning points. While this book reveals much about Welty’s inner self, it is not a history of her life.
The book originated as a series of lectures, the first in the series of William E. Massey, Sr., Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University. Welty gave three lectures at Harvard in April, 1983, and these were edited and published by Harvard University Press in the following year. Although the lectures were written for and delivered to a university audience, they are of special interest to younger readers because Welty focuses on beginnings: how she began to see her world, what in this early experience led her to become a writer, and what she found most valuable to being a writer. Young readers who aspire to become professional writers or who are interested in how writers and artists think and develop will find Welty’s book interesting. They will also find the book accessible because Welty’s style, made for oral presentation, remains clear and simple even when her ideas are complicated and deep.
Welty speaks of her childhood world as ordered by her father’s concerns for stability and progress and her mother’s memories of past pains and fear of the future. Her father was an optimist who was ready for the worst, and her mother was a pessimist who always hoped for the best. Within the life that they created for her was a richness of experience in books and in family. Both parents...
(The entire section is 738 words.)