Customer Reviews

Carson McCullers: A Life

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This book tells of Carson McCuller's relationships with her family, friends and fellow authors & artists. Her contentious relationship with her husband, Reeves McCullers, the wanna-be author whom she married twice, is thoroughly discussed. Although her life was filled with pain from her "mysterious illness" and difficult relationships, the author shows how Carson had a strong desire to survive and keep writing. It was interesting to read about her life-long friendship with Tennesse Williams and her love-hate relationship with Truman Capote. The author gathered together the opinions of many people who knew Carson, whether they loved her or hated her, and shares them with us in this story of her life.

I'm in the middle of reading it right now, and it's a fairly good bio, certainly interesting in its own way, but the author has the annoying habit of repeatedly taking pointless potshots at previous biographers, as if to say: "They were wrong, but I, yes I, oh great I, on the other hand, am right." Probably the best thing to do is to read the great Carson McCullers' books and absorb her life through her fiction, it will give you her soul and that is more important than "facts". But if you must have facts and don't mind a biographer who toots her own horn like a cabbie stuck in traffic, then this just might do.

I did not get around to reading one of McCullers' books to several years ago and thought it was quite good. After hearing something regarding this writer's tragic life, I thought a biography would be interesting (morbid me). I must admit, however, I was somewhat amused, and sometimes annoyed, by one of this biographer's strategies. She went to great lengths to defend this author -- a person whom she had never met -- against criticisms drawn by contemporaries, collegues, and other biographers, many of whom knew Carson McCullers personally. She even went so far as to make personal attacks on some of these individuals. And on what did she base these conclusions? On the cold record, as she candidly admitted that most of the persons who knew Carson McCullers (and were interviewed at length by earlier biographers) have pased away. I would have enjoyed the biography better if the facts were set forth more objectively, and she had let her readers make their own conclusions. This biographer should have not felt the need to be constantly dending this author whose books will speak for themselves.

But the biography is not a bad book, as it was well written and drew some interesting conclusions. I guess she was attempting to say something new, and to the extent it will encourage a reader to go out and read McCuller's catalog, it serves its purpose.