Carson McCullers
Encyclopedia
Carson McCullers was an American
writer
. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South. Her other novels have similar themes and are all set in the South.
in 1917. Her mother was the granddaughter of a plantation
owner and Confederate
war hero. Her father, similar to Wilbur Kelly in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
, was a watchmaker and jeweler of French Huguenot
descent. From the age of ten, Lula took piano lessons. When she was 15, her father gave her a typewriter for her writing.
Smith graduated from Columbus High School
. In September 1934 at age 17, she left home on a steamship from Savannah, Georgia
, planning to study piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City
. After losing the money set aside for her tuition, she never attended the school. McCullers worked in menial jobs and studied creative writing under the Texas writer Dorothy Scarborough
at night classes at Columbia University
, and with Sylvia Chatfield Bates at Washington Square College of New York University
. In 1936 she published her first work. "Wunderkind", an autobiographical piece which Bates had much admired, appeared in Story magazine
. It depicted a musical prodigy's failure and adolescent insecurity. It is also collected in the The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
, where Reeves had found some work.
served as her literary agent in 1938, 1941, and 1948-1949. In Charlotte and Fayetteville, North Carolina
, McCullers wrote her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
, in the Southern Gothic
tradition. Suggested by McCullers's editor, the title was taken from Fiona MacLeod's poem "The Lonely Hunter." Carson McCullers and some commentators say that she wrote in the style of Southern realism, a genre inspired by Russian realism. At the time, the novel was interpreted as an anti-fascist book.
McCullers published eight books. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), written at the age of twenty-three, Reflections in a Golden Eye
(1941) and The Member of the Wedding
(1946), are the best known. The novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
(1951) depicts loneliness and pain of unrequited love. She was an alumna of Yaddo
in Saratoga, New York.
Some people know her work by film adaptations. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was adapted as a film by the same title in 1968, with Alan Arkin
starring in the lead role.
Reflections in a Golden Eye was directed by John Huston
(1967), starring Marlon Brando
and Elizabeth Taylor
. "I first met Carson McCullers during the war when I was visiting Paulette Goddard
and Burgess Meredith
in upstate New York," said Huston in An Open Book (1980). "Carson lived nearby, and one day when Buzz and I were out for a walk she hailed us from her doorway. She was then in her early twenties, and had already suffered the first of a series of strokes. I remember her as a fragile thing with great shining eyes, and a tremor in her hand as she placed it in mine. It wasn't palsy, rather a quiver of animal timidity. But there was nothing timid or frail about the manner in which Carson McCullers faced life. And as her afflictions multiplied, she only grew stronger."
, the editor of Harper's Bazaar
. In Brooklyn, she became a member of the art commune February House. Among their friends were W. H. Auden
, Benjamin Britten
, Gypsy Rose Lee
, and Paul
and Jane Bowles
. After World War II
, Carson lived mostly in Paris. Her close friends during these years included Truman Capote
and Tennessee Williams
.
In 1945, Carson and Reeves McCullers remarried. Three years later, she attempted suicide
while depressed. In 1953, Reeves tried to convince her to commit suicide with him, but she fled. After Carson left, Reeves killed himself in their Paris hotel with an overdose of sleeping pills. Her bittersweet play, The Square Root of Wonderful (1957), was an attempt to examine these traumatic experiences. The Member of the Wedding
(1946) describes the feelings of a young girl at her brother's wedding. The Broadway stage adaptation of the novel had a successful run in 1950–51 and was produced by the Young Vic in London in September 2007.
McCullers suffered throughout her life from several illnesses and from alcoholism—she had contracted rheumatic fever
at the age of fifteen and suffered from stroke
s since her youth. By the age of 31, her left side was entirely paralyzed. She died in Nyack, New York
, on September 29, 1967, after a brain hemorrhage, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. McCullers dictated her unfinished autobiography, Illumination and Night Glare (1999), during her final months. Her home from 1945 to 1967
was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 2006.
Although McCullers's oeuvre is often described as "Southern Gothic
," she produced her famous works after leaving the South
. Her eccentric character
s suffer from loneliness
that is interpreted with deep empathy
. In a discussion with the Irish
critic
and writer
Terence de Vere White
she said: "Writing, for me, is a search for God
." Other critics have variously detected tragicomic
or political
elements in her writing
.
on his debut album, Jarvis. It forms the introduction to the song "Big Julie" and consists of an edited (or slightly mangled) version of the opening lines of the book:
Sue Denim of the band Robots in Disguise
references McCullers along with other writers in the song "For JT and Carson and Emily". in her solo project Sue and the Unicorn.
Paul Westerberg refers to Carson McCullers in his song, "Dice Behind Your Shades."
Nanci Griffith
's album Clock Without Hands
is in part inspired by McCullers' novel.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
is referred to in the movie A Love Song for Bobby Long
; the main character's mother always carried the novel with her and read it over and over again.
Charles Bukowski
wrote an eponymous poem about her.
Tennessee Williams
dedicated his 1948 play Summer and Smoke
and the poem Which is my little boy (Jean qui rit) to her.
In the movie Con Air
, Ving Rhames
's character Diamond Dog is said to have written a memoir entitled Reflections in a Diamond Eye.
Carson McCullers Talks About Love, a new musical about the author's life written by Suzanne Vega
and Duncan Sheik
and performed by Vega, opened at the Rattlestick Playwright's Theater in New York City in May 2011.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia...
explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South. Her other novels have similar themes and are all set in the South.
Early life and education
She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, GeorgiaColumbus, Georgia
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...
in 1917. Her mother was the granddaughter of a plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
owner and Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
war hero. Her father, similar to Wilbur Kelly in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia...
, was a watchmaker and jeweler of French Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
descent. From the age of ten, Lula took piano lessons. When she was 15, her father gave her a typewriter for her writing.
Smith graduated from Columbus High School
Columbus High School (Columbus, Georgia)
Columbus High School is located in Columbus, Georgia, USA. It serves as one of the Muscogee County School District's Liberal Arts Magnet school. It opened in 1890 and has been located throughout the city. In the 2006–2007 school year it was ranked #9. In 2005, the school shared the ranking as the...
. In September 1934 at age 17, she left home on a steamship from Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, planning to study piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. After losing the money set aside for her tuition, she never attended the school. McCullers worked in menial jobs and studied creative writing under the Texas writer Dorothy Scarborough
Dorothy Scarborough
Dorothy Scarborough was an American writer who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories and a woman's life in the Southwest.-Early life:...
at night classes at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and with Sylvia Chatfield Bates at Washington Square College of New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. In 1936 she published her first work. "Wunderkind", an autobiographical piece which Bates had much admired, appeared in Story magazine
Story (magazine)
Story was a magazine founded in 1931 by journalist-editor Whit Burnett and his first wife, Martha Foley, in Vienna, Austria. Showcasing short stories by new authors, 67 copies of the debut issue were mimeographed in Vienna, and two years later, Story moved to New York City where Burnett and Foley...
. It depicted a musical prodigy's failure and adolescent insecurity. It is also collected in the The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
Marriage
From 1935 to 1937 she divided her time, as her studies and health dictated, between Columbus and New York. In September 1937 she married an ex-soldier and aspiring writer, Reeves McCullers. They began their married life in Charlotte, North CarolinaCharlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
, where Reeves had found some work.
Career
Maxim LieberMaxim Lieber
Maxim Lieber was a prominent American literary agent in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Whittaker Chambers named him as an accomplice in 1949, and Lieber fled first to Mexico and then Poland not long after Alger Hiss's conviction in 1950.- Early years :Lieber was born in Warsaw, Poland,...
served as her literary agent in 1938, 1941, and 1948-1949. In Charlotte and Fayetteville, North Carolina
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Fayetteville is a city located in Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Cumberland County, and is best known as the home of Fort Bragg, a U.S. Army post located northwest of the city....
, McCullers wrote her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia...
, in the Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot...
tradition. Suggested by McCullers's editor, the title was taken from Fiona MacLeod's poem "The Lonely Hunter." Carson McCullers and some commentators say that she wrote in the style of Southern realism, a genre inspired by Russian realism. At the time, the novel was interpreted as an anti-fascist book.
McCullers published eight books. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), written at the age of twenty-three, Reflections in a Golden Eye
Reflections in a Golden Eye (novel)
Reflections in a Golden Eye is a 1941 novel by American author Carson McCullers.It first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1940, serialized in the October–November issues. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin on February 14, 1941, to mostly poor reviews...
(1941) and The Member of the Wedding
The Member of the Wedding
The Member of the Wedding is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete—though she interrupted the work for a few months to write the short novel The Ballad of the Sad Cafe....
(1946), are the best known. The novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
The Ballad of the Sad Café is a novel by Carson McCullers.-Plot:The Ballad of the Sad Café opens on the set of a small, isolated Southern town...
(1951) depicts loneliness and pain of unrequited love. She was an alumna of Yaddo
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
in Saratoga, New York.
Some people know her work by film adaptations. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was adapted as a film by the same title in 1968, with Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
starring in the lead role.
Reflections in a Golden Eye was directed by John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
(1967), starring Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
and Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
. "I first met Carson McCullers during the war when I was visiting Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...
and Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
in upstate New York," said Huston in An Open Book (1980). "Carson lived nearby, and one day when Buzz and I were out for a walk she hailed us from her doorway. She was then in her early twenties, and had already suffered the first of a series of strokes. I remember her as a fragile thing with great shining eyes, and a tremor in her hand as she placed it in mine. It wasn't palsy, rather a quiver of animal timidity. But there was nothing timid or frail about the manner in which Carson McCullers faced life. And as her afflictions multiplied, she only grew stronger."
Divorce and emotional struggles
McCullers and Reeves separated in 1940 and divorced in 1941. After she separated from Reeves, she moved to New York to live with George DavisGeorge Davis (editor)
George Davis was an influential American fiction editor and minor novelist.-Early life:After an early period in Chicago, Davis spent much of his twenties as an expatriate in Paris.-The Opening of a Door:...
, the editor of Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
. In Brooklyn, she became a member of the art commune February House. Among their friends were W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee was an American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author, and playwright whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy.-Early life:...
, and Paul
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
and Jane Bowles
Jane Bowles
Jane Bowles, born Jane Sydney Auer , was an American writer and playwright.-Early life:Born into a Jewish family in New York, Jane Bowles spent her childhood in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island. She developed tuberculous arthritis of the knee as a teenager and her mother took her to Switzerland...
. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Carson lived mostly in Paris. Her close friends during these years included Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
.
In 1945, Carson and Reeves McCullers remarried. Three years later, she attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
while depressed. In 1953, Reeves tried to convince her to commit suicide with him, but she fled. After Carson left, Reeves killed himself in their Paris hotel with an overdose of sleeping pills. Her bittersweet play, The Square Root of Wonderful (1957), was an attempt to examine these traumatic experiences. The Member of the Wedding
The Member of the Wedding
The Member of the Wedding is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete—though she interrupted the work for a few months to write the short novel The Ballad of the Sad Cafe....
(1946) describes the feelings of a young girl at her brother's wedding. The Broadway stage adaptation of the novel had a successful run in 1950–51 and was produced by the Young Vic in London in September 2007.
McCullers suffered throughout her life from several illnesses and from alcoholism—she had contracted rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that occurs following a Streptococcus pyogenes infection, such as strep throat or scarlet fever. Believed to be caused by antibody cross-reactivity that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain, the illness typically develops two to three weeks after...
at the age of fifteen and suffered from stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
s since her youth. By the age of 31, her left side was entirely paralyzed. She died in Nyack, New York
Nyack, New York
Nyack is a village in the towns of Orangetown and Clarkstown in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of South Nyack; east of Central Nyack; south of Upper Nyack and west of the Hudson River, approximately 19 miles north of the Manhattan boundary, it is an inner suburb of New...
, on September 29, 1967, after a brain hemorrhage, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. McCullers dictated her unfinished autobiography, Illumination and Night Glare (1999), during her final months. Her home from 1945 to 1967
Carson McCullers House
Carson McCullers House is a historic home located at South Nyack in Rockland County, New York. It is a two story Second Empire style residence constructed in 1880 and modified with subsequent interior and exterior modifications largely in the Colonial Revival spirit about 1910. It is a frame...
was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 2006.
Criticism
- "Mrs McCullers and perhaps Mr. FaulknerWilliam FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
are the only writers since the death of D. H. LawrenceD. H. LawrenceDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
with an original poetic sensibility. I prefer Mrs McCullers to Mr. Faulkner because she writes more clearly; I prefer her to D. H. Lawrence because she has no message." – Graham GreeneGraham GreeneHenry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
- "[Her work is] one of the few satisfying achievements of our second-rate culture." – Gore VidalGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
- "Moving, yes, but a minor author. And broken by illness at such a young age." – Arthur MillerArthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
- "Carson's major theme; the huge importance and nearly insoluble problems of human love." – Tennessee WilliamsTennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
.
Although McCullers's oeuvre is often described as "Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot...
," she produced her famous works after leaving the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. Her eccentric character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
s suffer from loneliness
Loneliness
Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. However, it is a subjective experience...
that is interpreted with deep empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
. In a discussion with the Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
Terence de Vere White
Terence de Vere White
Terence de Vere White was an Irish writer, lawyer and editor.Born in Dublin, he studied at Trinity College, Dublin where he qualified as a solicitor and became a partner in a leading Dublin law firm. He gave up law when he became the literary editor of The Irish Times from 1961 to 1977...
she said: "Writing, for me, is a search for God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
." Other critics have variously detected tragicomic
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
or political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
elements in her writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
.
Cultural references
McCullers' narration of The Member of the Wedding was used by Jarvis CockerJarvis Cocker
Jarvis Branson Cocker is an English musician and frontman for the band Pulp. Through his work with the band, Cocker became a figurehead of the Britpop movement of the mid-1990s. Following Pulp's hiatus Cocker has led a successful solo career...
on his debut album, Jarvis. It forms the introduction to the song "Big Julie" and consists of an edited (or slightly mangled) version of the opening lines of the book:
- "It happened that green and crazy summer. It was a summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and she was a member of nothing in the world. And she was afraid."
Sue Denim of the band Robots in Disguise
Robots in Disguise
Robots in Disguise are an English electropunk band. The group is composed of Dee Plume , Sue Denim , and a rolling live line-up of backing musicians...
references McCullers along with other writers in the song "For JT and Carson and Emily". in her solo project Sue and the Unicorn.
Paul Westerberg refers to Carson McCullers in his song, "Dice Behind Your Shades."
Nanci Griffith
Nanci Griffith
Nanci Griffith, is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas.-Biography:...
's album Clock Without Hands
Clock Without Hands
Released in July 2001, Clock Without Hands is Nanci Griffith's fourteenth studio album. It was named after Carson McCullers' final novel , and is a particularly personal collection of songs, including "Last Song For Mother" , a moving tribute to her late mother...
is in part inspired by McCullers' novel.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia...
is referred to in the movie A Love Song for Bobby Long
A Love Song for Bobby Long
A Love Song for Bobby Long is a 2004 American drama film written and directed by Shainee Gabel. The screenplay is based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps.-Plot:...
; the main character's mother always carried the novel with her and read it over and over again.
Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
wrote an eponymous poem about her.
Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
dedicated his 1948 play Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
and the poem Which is my little boy (Jean qui rit) to her.
In the movie Con Air
Con Air
Con Air is an Academy Award–nominated 1997 American action-thriller film directed by Simon West and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It stars Nicolas Cage, John Cusack and John Malkovich...
, Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...
's character Diamond Dog is said to have written a memoir entitled Reflections in a Diamond Eye.
Carson McCullers Talks About Love, a new musical about the author's life written by Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...
and Duncan Sheik
Duncan Sheik
Duncan Scott Sheik is an American singer-songwriter and composer. Sheik initially found success as a singer, most notably for his 1996 debut single "Barely Breathing". He later expanded his work to include compositions for motion pictures and the Broadway stage, leading him to involvement in the...
and performed by Vega, opened at the Rattlestick Playwright's Theater in New York City in May 2011.
Novels
- The Heart Is a Lonely HunterThe Heart Is a Lonely HunterThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. Written in Charlotte, North Carolina, in houses on Central Avenue and East Boulevard, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia...
(1940) - Reflections in a Golden EyeReflections in a Golden Eye (novel)Reflections in a Golden Eye is a 1941 novel by American author Carson McCullers.It first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1940, serialized in the October–November issues. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin on February 14, 1941, to mostly poor reviews...
(1941) - The Member of the WeddingThe Member of the WeddingThe Member of the Wedding is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete—though she interrupted the work for a few months to write the short novel The Ballad of the Sad Cafe....
(1946) - Clock Without Hands (1961)
Other works
- The Ballad of the Sad CafeThe Ballad of the Sad CafeThe Ballad of the Sad Café is a novel by Carson McCullers.-Plot:The Ballad of the Sad Café opens on the set of a small, isolated Southern town...
(1951), a short story collection comprising:- a novellaNovellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
of the same title, later made into a Merchant Ivory Film, - Wunderkind – (StoryStory (magazine)Story was a magazine founded in 1931 by journalist-editor Whit Burnett and his first wife, Martha Foley, in Vienna, Austria. Showcasing short stories by new authors, 67 copies of the debut issue were mimeographed in Vienna, and two years later, Story moved to New York City where Burnett and Foley...
, 1936) - The Jockey – (The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, 1941) - Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland – (The New Yorker, 1941)
- The Sojourner – (MademoiselleMademoiselle (magazine)Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, 1950) - A Domestic Dilemma – (New York PostNew York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
magazine section, September 16, 1951) - A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud – (Harper's BazaarHarper's BazaarHarper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
, 1942)
- a novella
- The Square Root of Wonderful (1958), a play
- Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig (1964), a collection of poems
- The Mortgaged Heart (1972), a posthumous collection of writings, edited by her sister Rita
- Illumination and Night Glare (1999), her unfinished autobiographyAutobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, published more than 30 years after her death
Collections
- Complete Novels, Carlos L. Dews, ed. (New York: The Library of America, 2001) ISBN 978-1-93108203-7.
External links
- The Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians
- The Carson McCullers Project
- Two different critical views of McCullers:
- Carson McCullers: A Life (Limited Preview)
- Online text of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Limited Preview)
- Entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia
- Online text of The Member of the Wedding (Limited Preview)
- Online text of Reflections in a Golden Eye (Limited Preview)
- McCullers' Papers at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin