Books: Shangri-la South

LOSING BATTLES by Eudora Welty. 436 pages. Random House. $7.95.

"Don't give anybody up. Or leave anybody out," a young man tells his bride who is dying to leave the party and be alone with him. "There's room for everything and time for everybody." After reading this 436-page celebration of togetherness, the reader can only say, wearily but reverently, "Amen."

Eudora Welty is an accomplished amateur photographer, and her new novel is not unlike a home movie made by a loving genius. Its action takes place in Banner, a Mississippi hill town, during two summer days in the 1930s at the 90th birthday...

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