Home grown.

EUDORA WELTY: A BIOGRAPHY By Suzanne Marrs. Hardcover, $28.00. Harcourt Trade Publishers, www.harcourtbooks.com.

When Eudora Welty granted Millsaps College professor and Welty scholar Suzanne Marrs permission to capture the revered author's life in a biography, she did so with a warning: "You may be getting into deeper water than you imagine." Admirers of Welty's works should be thankful that Marrs wasn't so easily frightened. Welty's blessing and her close friendship with Marrs meant that, unlike previous biographers and reviewers, Marrs had access to a vast collection of letters to and from the author and was able to personally interview many of Welty's friends and fellow writers. Making good use of these privileged insights, Marrs' recently published volume tells the "whole factual story" of Welty's life in a manner that is both sensitive and revelatory.

From a happy childhood spent surrounded by books to her first of many stints in New York as a Columbia University graduate student to the photography expeditions she pursued fervently in the 1930s, Marrs deftly traces the early steps that led to Welty's celebrated writing career. There were frustrations along the way--after one story was rejected, Eudora burned the manuscript in her wood stove. But the down times were far outweighed by positive moments, and even the story reduced to ashes was resurrected from memory after the literary journal that had declined to publish it reconsidered its folly.

From there, success came quickly, with story after story accepted by national magazines and books published to glowing reviews. Her personal life did not always resolve itself so neatly; through letters, Marrs lets readers see inside two long romantic relationships, neither of which ended the way Eudora would have wished. She was no stranger to tragedy, gracefully carrying on after the deaths of family members and friends and even drawing on those true emotions to inform her fiction.

In 1940, Welty decided in earnest to begin writing about her home state. "'I believe I could find stories, old ones and new ones, and beliefs and songs and violent events all over the place to show what the life here is ...,'" she wrote to her agent, Diarmuid Russell. That sense of place would remain a vital source of inspiration, one that she defended against critics of so-called "regional" writing. "'It is nothing new or startling that Southerners do write--probably they must write,'" she told audience members at one lecture. "'It is the way they are: born readers and reciters, great document holders, diary keepers, letter exchangers and savers, history tracers--and, outstaying the rest, great talkers.'"

As quick as she was to defend her state and the South, Welty also showed her disdain for social policies she believed were unjust. In the early 1960s, she spoke before integrated audiences and wrote a "devastating portrait of the racist mind-set" for The New Yorker magazine, but she stopped short of publicly and directly criticizing the place from which she came."... At a very profound level, Eudora loved her home state, its natural beauty, cultural riches, and eccentricities," Marrs writes. "'The home tie is the blood tie,' she had earlier written."

Even after making The New York Times Best-Seller List, winning a Pulitzer Prize, and having her imagined settings depicted on Broadway stages, Eudora possessed a humility that belied her success and a zest for life that did not wane with advancing age. "'I do believe in seizing the day at all good chances, don't you?'" she once asked a friend. She crossed the country again and again, delivering lectures, giving readings, and accepting no less than 39 honorary degrees. Her selfless nature rarely let her turn down a request from a school that wished for its students to learn from a living legend.

"Over the course of her 92 years, Eudora engaged the world with all her powers and never retreated into a singular, narrowly defined role," Marrs writes. "Openness to experience complemented her creative genius and helped her to produce some of the most memorable fiction of the 20th century."

Marrs' book is refreshingly straight-forward--there's no need for flowery embellishment of a life that itself paints such a vivid picture. Humble Eudora never wrote a complete autobiography, but so many of her personal thoughts and emotions are revealed here that it almost seems as though Miss Welty is telling her own story.

GRACELAND'S TABLE: RECIPES AND MEAL MEMORIES FIT FOR THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL By Ellen Rolfes, with Elvis Presley Enterprises. Hardcover, $19.99. Rutledge Hill Press, www.thomasnelson.com.

If you could invite the King of Rock and Roll to dinner, what would you serve? Maybe some "'Blue Hawaii' Sweet and Sour Hawaiian Spareribs," or perhaps a "'Hunk of Burning Love' Green Chile and Cheese Casserole?" Those dishes were among those submitted by Elvis Presley fan club members for inclusion in Graceland's Table, a cookbook filled with foods the Tupelo native loved and those he might have enjoyed if he were around today.

The book is the first of its kind to be written with the "full cooperation" of Elvis Presley Enterprises, so in addition to fans' fantasy recipes, readers will also find rare photographs of Elvis and of the time-frozen interior of his Memphis mansion. Also included are recipes from Graceland's own cooks; unlike those from fans, these are simple Southern foods for a man with simple tastes: dishes like "Memories Meatloaf," home-fried potatoes, pecan pie, and, of course, those mouth-watering grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Just as appealing as the recipes are the book's personal stories from friends who remember meals with the King. Janelle McComb of Tupelo writes of taking her Whipped Cream Pound Cake to Graceland and of a memorable encounter between Elvis and her young niece. Former private nurse Marian Cocke recalls the bond she shared with Elvis: "Once he asked me if I knew how to make banana pudding, and I said, 'Sure I do.'... He asked me to bring it to him, and he took the bowl and a spoon and ate half of it right out of the bowl."

Cocke's affection for the King is shared by many who never knew him but still sought to be a part of this culinary tribute. "If I ever had anything to say about Elvis Presley, it would be that he cared more about other people than he did about himself," Cocke writes. "He was a nice man; he truly was."

MEMORIES MEATLOAF

2 pounds ground beef
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup green bell pepper cored,
  seeded, and chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 large eggs, beaten
1 (4-ounce) package crackers,
  crushed
3 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce,
   divided
1/2 cup ketchup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine
beef, onion, bell pepper, garlic, eggs,
cracker crumbs, and 1 can tomato sauce
in a large bowl. Mix well. Place in a large
loaf pan, and bake for 1 hour, draining
off fat as needed. While baking, prepare
meatloaf sauce by mixing 2 cans tomato
sauce with ketchup. When loaf is done,
remove from oven, and pour sauce over
top. Bake for an additional 15 minutes.
Yield: 8 servings.

MARIAN COCKE'S
BANANA PUDDING

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Dash salt
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 1/2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons butter
Vanilla extract to taste
Vanilla wafers
Bananas, sliced
Whipped cream or whipped topping

Combine sugar and flour in a bowl.
Mix in salt, half-and-half, milk, and
egg yolks. Transfer to a saucepan, and
cook, stirring, over medium heat until
thickened. Remove from heat, and stir
in butter and vanilla to taste. Cool
custard to room temperature.

Layer a glass bowl with vanilla wafers
and sliced bananas. Pour in custard, then
top with another layer of wafers and
bananas. Cover with whipped cream
or whipped topping. Refrigerate until
ready to serve. Yield: 4 servings (unless
you're Elvis).