Carson McCullers

I remember reading Lonely Hunter in college and loving it. But, for whatever reason, I never read anything else by her.

She was an exhausting person (I wrote an essay on her for a scholarly volume). I think she’s a writer for adolescents and undergraduate students. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has touching elements, but it is ultimately a mishmash of “lovable losers.” I think “The Member of the Wedding” holds up best. “The Ballad if the Sad cafe” is her trying to do Flannery O’Connor without the brilliant, often nasty irony and religious commitments. Oddly, her last novel, “Clock without Hands,” while a failure as a realized narrative and read by very few, is interesting. I don’t think she’s at the same level as O’Connor, Welty, or Porter.

Any thoughts on Reflections..., r2?

She was an enormous celebrity in the 1940s and 1950s. She was always being photographed and appearing in fashion magazines despite her undeniable homeliness.

It's often been speculated that she might have been trans given her fascination with trying to appear masculine. She denied being a lesbian despite her erotic obsessions with women, and tried to work it out with her therapist during the last years of her life.

"Son, have you ever been collared and dragged out into the street and thrashed by a naked woman? Huh?"

Almost all of her novels and novellas have been turned into films--I think "Clock Without Hands" is the only one that hasn't been.

She was a HUGE influence in mid-century American fiction--Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms" was hugely influenced by her, as was Sylvia Plath's "The Bell jar" and Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye."

She used to hang out with Tennessee Williams.

^^He helped her transform "The Member of the Wedding" into a play.

With garden shears!

Wasn't her husband gay?

Massive pussyhound. Big Stevenson supporter.

For anyone interested in her, I recommend the recent biography by Mary Dearborn.

At one point, Carson's alcoholic husband Reeves McCullers threatened to commit suicide, screaming: "I'm a homosexual!"

Unmoved by the confession, [Tennessee] Williams burst out laughing. "Lots of people are that," he said, "without jumping out of hotel windows."

Stalking someone you’re greatly attracted to - male or female - is adolescent behavior, assuming the stalker isn’t crazy. McCullers seems to be a very immature lesbian. As for the clothes, that stuff was not unusual for lesbians of the time. Doesn’t mean they’re trans.

'Member Of The Wedding' is one of my favorite things ever.

"They are the 'we' of me."

[quote] McCullers seems to be a very immature lesbian.

"seems to be"? She's been dead for more than fifty years.

R4, R2, responding very late to your question about Reflections. I read it for the first time when I was commissioned to write the essay, so reading it for the first time in my early 60s made me roll my eyes at much in it I might have found fascinating if I read it in my 30s. It’s camp that takes itself too seriously for my tastes. I enjoy camp, whether intention or not, but Reflections didn’t really give me aesthetic pleasure or a few good laughs.

There’s a really good bio of her released a couple years ago. She was a complete mess! Married a gay man. She was bi. Pea green with envy over anyone whose talent rivaled hers and regularly took shots at other writers. So, a DLer to her core.

I read all of CMc in my sophomore year of college.

In my early 70s I reread Reflections and enjoyed it. But I've always loved Southern Gothic.

Edward Albee adapted Ballad of the Sad Cafe into a play. That's all I got.

I have not read but I am reminded of a grifter in the early 2000s who published a novel with a similar title, "borrowed without asking". The author got themselves in trouble claiming the novel was not "like fiction but like,really and like,totally true".

A few actors were involved with the grift.

I think I remember reading in Katherine Anne Porter’s biography that McCullers stalked her at the artists retreat in Saratoga Springs NY called Yaddo. They both had fellowships there, were they lived in cabins and wrote during their retreat. McCullers would lie in the doorway of Porter’s cabin waiting to get her attention.

Katherine Anne Porter was a beautiful woman.

[quote]Doesn’t mean they’re trans.

Doesn't mean they aren't, r13.

R20 this is DL.

We've explored every single thing possible about JT Leroy.

That fake lot lizard whore.

r20, your job is to be responsible for everything r24 has ever seen or thought before.

Entertain him with new analogies and stories! NOW!

R24 and r25 are equally inconsequential

It's not all that well known but McCullers fled her marriage and moved into a boarding house in 1938-39 in Brooklyn Heights that she shared with WH Auden and his young American lover, ex-Brit pats Benjamin Britten and his lover opera singer Peter Pears, Lesbian German writer Erika Mann (who was the daughter of Thomas Mann), Broadway stage designer Oliver Smith and writers Paul and Jane Bowles.

They were all invited there by gay Harper's Bazaar editor George Davis, who was a fan and advocate of them all just as they were making their mark in world culture, but without the funds (and the threat of looming war) to live comfortably as themselves.

Finally, they were joined there by none other than the Queen of Burlesque herself, Gypsy Rose Lee, who was struggling to finish her first novel, The G-String Murders. And in exchange for a hefty rent (Gypsy was by far wealthier than any of the others), she was able to procure their wit and wisdom in improving her book.

They called their home February House because several of the housemates were coincidentally born in February. The utopia didn't last long but while it did it was fabulous and the site of many incredible parties. Much later (I think in the 1950s) George Davis married Lotte Lenya, who adored him.

The story of this great adventure is captured in the wonderful non-fiction book FEBRUARY HOUSE, written Sherill Tippins. Not a shill, just a fan, but I strongly recommend checking out the book if you're an admirer of any of those artists.

"The Member of the Wedding" breaks my heart. I don't even remember how it ends, but the feelings Frankie has are just too much for me.

Thank you, R27, for the book recommendation. Very interesting post.

Suzanne Vega (looking very well) giving a talk on McCullers. She released an album of songs inspired by her:

I'm currently stuck in the middle of Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The talent is clearly there but I just can't get interested and I doubt I'll finish it.

The gay husband looks pretty good.

Reeves killed himself in Paris in 1953. He decided not to jump out the window, and overdosed on pills instead. He had tried, without success, to get Carson to commit suicide alongside him. He was small, but very handsome.