The Member of the Wedding [Paperback]

Carson McCullers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2004

The novel that became an award-winning play and a major motion picture and that has charmed generations of readers, Carson McCullers’s classic The Member of the Wedding is now available in small- format trade paperback for the first time. Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother’s wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old male cousin — not to mention her own unbridled imagination — Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of something larger, more accepting than herself. “A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence” (Detroit Free Press), The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Twelve-year-old Frankie Adams, longing at once for escape and belonging, takes her role as "member of the wedding" to mean that when her older brother marries she will join the happy couple in their new life together. But Frankie is unlucky in love; her mother is dead, and Frankie narrowly escapes being raped by a drunken soldier during a farewell tour of the town. Worst of all, "member of the wedding" doesn't mean what she thinks. A gorgeous, brief coming-of-age novel. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Novel by Carson Mccullers, published in 1946. It depicts the inner life of 12-year-old Frankie Addams, a Georgia tomboy who imagines that she will be taken by the bride and groom (her brother) on their honeymoon. Frankie finds refuge in the company of two equally isolated characters, her ailing six-year-old cousin John Henry and her father's black housekeeper, Berenice, who serves as both mother figure and oracle. Much of the novel consists of a series of kitchen-table conversations among these three. The threesome is broken by the cousin's death and Berenice's own wedding. --The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (August 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618492399
• ISBN-13: 978-0618492398
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #78 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Single Women

More About the Author

Carson McCullers (1917-1967) was the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and Clock Without Hands. Born in Columbus, Georgia, on February 19, 1917, she became a promising pianist and enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York when she was seventeen, but lacking money for tuition, she never attended classes. Instead she studied writing at Columbia University, which ultimately led to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, the novel that made her an overnight literary sensation. On September 29, 1967, at age fifty, she died in Nyack, New York, where she is buried.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a painfully touching look at the trauma of adolesence.. April 29, 2005

By lazza

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I am amazed at the largely negative reviews of this book. While I will acknowledge Carson McCullers hadn't consistently produced fine literature, 'The Member of the Wedding' has to be considered one of her best. In short it chronicles the summer of a twelve year old girl growing up in the American South during WW II. She has reached the age where she doesn't quite fit into this world. Her emotions reach the boiling point as the day of her brother's wedding nears. ...at that's about it. Sound dull? Anything but.

What really makes this book special are the characterizations and the extremely rich prose. Very few modern writers can produce such eloquent and simple prose, ... perhaps Margaret Atwood comes close. I found myself feeling such empathy for our leading character, ... and I'm a middle-aged man. So don't think this is a book for little girls. Its appeal trancends both age and gender.

Bottom line: simply wonderful. Read it NOW!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars DARK AND MELANCHOLIC COMING OF AGE STORY... August 26, 2007

By Lawyeraau HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This is a book about Frankie Adams, a twelve year old girl coming of age in the South during World War II. We see her world through her eyes, so that the reader gets a skewed version of the world around Frankie. Clearly all is not right with her, as her brother is getting married and Frankie thinks that she will be going off with her brother and his bride. Frankie spins a total fantasy around this concept. She does not think that two is company and three is a crowd.

Why does she do this? There are many reasons. Some of them are rather dark. Frankie's mother died giving birth to her. Her father has remained a widower, letting Frankie sleep in the same bed with him until she was about twelve, when he finally gave her the boot. Her best friend is her six year old first cousin, John Henry. He likes to sleep over, and when he does, he sleeps in the bed with Frankie. She caresses him when he sleeps, and even takes to licking him behind his ear while he slumbers. She also has apparently had a sexual encounter of some kind with a neighborhood boy, an incident about which she will not speak. The author weaves these details into the story, glossing over them, leaving the reader feeling shocked. This feeling is exacerbated by the almost casual interjection of these details.

There is so much emotional trauma in Frankie's life that it is amazing she can function at all. Also distressing to Frankie is the fact that she is isolated from children her own age. The neighborhood girls, who are just a little older than her and whom Frankie envies, shun her. Her father pretty much ignores her, leaving her upbringing to the housekeeper, Bernice. When it comes time to buy her a dress for her brother's wedding, she is sent off to buy the dress by herself.... It is little wonder that the dress she ends up purchasing is totally unsuitable. Her feeling of isolation is palpable to the reader.

Although Frankie is somewhat of a tomboy, she likes getting dressed up, slathering on lipstick, and taking a walk through the town, calling herself F. Jasmine, looking older than her years. In this guise, she meets a soldier, who takes her for being much older. It comes as no surprise when it all goes horribly wrong. Yet, Frankie is evidently a survivor and manages to fend for herself.

The moment of truth for Frankie arrives when her brother's wedding finally takes place, but by then that event is almost anti-climactic, as events continue to buffet Frankie, leaving her more isolated that ever before. Still, she continues on, not seeming to have learned anything all from her experiences, an emotionally troubled child suffering a severe disconnection from the world.

This is a thematically complex story told through the jagged fragments of the life of a young girl, one who views the world in a disjointed, unrealistic way, her world view clouded by inner demons that are never given a voice. It is a story that is dark and melancholic, leaving the reader to ponder upon a life so young, yet so despairing. Read more ›

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars They Went Away and Left Me October 21, 2000

By Mary Jo Lomele

Format:Mass Market Paperback

In The Member of the Wedding, by Carson McCullers, Frankie's wish to be with her brother and his wife-to-be symbolized her frantic need to escape the stagnant monotony her young life had become. Trapped in an awkward world of adolescence, Frankie no longer fit in. School was out and she had no friends her own age with whom she could associate. She felt isolated. John Henry was too young for her to relate to and though Berenice was in many ways her only source of emotional support, she was a permanent fixture of the kitchen from which Frankie so desperately wanted to flee. Somehow, someway, Frankie was going to leave.

There was, however, one problem. Frankie knew, perhaps subconsciously, that she was too young to take charge of her own life. In a desperate attempt to find a solution to her dilemma, Frankie dared to dream. Janice and Jarvis were going to sweep her off her feet and take her with them to far off lands. With them, she would meet all the people she believed they knew. Though her fantasy was very obviously absurd, it served to fill her with hope, anticipation and joy. Her conviction in the realization of this dream was so persistent that she did not hesitate to verbalize her plan.

Thus, the reader is drawn into Frankie's storybook fantasy, discovering at the same time her inconsolable need to feel connected. If read at face value, many would surmise that Frankie's behavior simply merited stricter discipline; that she was way out of line; a spoiled child who had to have her way or knives would fly. Tennessee Williams stated, "Frankie's attempt to take out a membership in love is the main theme of the novel." If by love he meant the need to be accepted, then Frankie proved Tennessee Williams right in more ways than one.

The onslaught of adolescence can be brutal.... Seemingly overnight, we are too tall or too short, too skinny or too chubby and what we are unexpectedly left with is what we perceive as a bloated, distorted image of what we once were. Frankie's height made it impossible for her to play under the boardwalk with the other children, who now taunted her with such remarks as, "Is it cold up there?" In all likelihood, Frankie supposed her new height meant she was an adult. She certainly was tall enough to be one, but the older girls in the neighborhood did not accept her in their club. Her own father distanced her when he told her that she was too old to sleep in the bed with him, tenderly calling her, "a great big long-legged twelve-year-old blunderbuss." Hurt by multiple rejections, Frankie changed her name to a more mature, feminine one. She doused herself with perfume and scrubbed the dirt off her elbows. She even accepted a date. Yet, when F. Jasmine listened to the news on the radio, she could not fully comprehend everything. Even the dress she had purchased for her brother's wedding was too large and sophisticated for her and met with Berenice's stern disapproval. However, none of this mattered much as long as F. Jasmine had her dream to cling to, but when Janice and Jarvis told her she simply could not join them, shattering the dream she had meticulously built, F. Jasmine broke. Stranded between two worlds in which acceptance was off-limits, she was forced to learn what loneliness meant.

One could easily consider F. Jasmine's need to feel connected as the mere folly of a bored 12-year-old child, yet it is painfully clear that her "attempt to take out a membership in love" was not superficial. When she cried out, "They went away and left me," she meant more than just the physical loss of Janice and Jarvis. F. Jasmine had lost the little child within her. Frankie was gone and along with her, so were those carefree days spent under the boardwalk with the other children; so were the safe nights tucked away in bed with her papa. What Frankie would soon learn, however, was that only time would heal her broken spirit. A new beginning lay just around the corner, one that promised bigger dreams. As Berenice had stated, "Things will happen." Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent, lovely, and sad October 18, 2007

By M. Lobato

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This is my very favorite book and, in my opinion, far superior to "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter."

I was not an adolescent when I read it--I was 23--but I was astonished by how often McCullers was able to perfectly describe what I had believed to be indescribable experiences. In some ways I think that my attachment to the book grew from my ability to relate to Frankie's anxiety. The pace of the book, which all takes place during one stereotypically oppressive southern summer, becomes more frantic as Frankie's anxiety mounts. Her efforts to belong, to be a member of something, push her to force attachments with others even while she knows they are superficial. I'm certain that, on this point alone, readers who remember the desperation to belong during their adolescence will relate to the novel. McCullers also conveys Frankie's longing for something to happen, to take her beyond the repetetive tedium of her young life and infuse it with adventure. When Frankie takes this task into her own hands, the results are harsh and startling.

What truly makes McCullers and this slim novel so amazing is her prose, which is both so sparse and crisp and yet so eloquent and expressive. Every word seems so deliberate that I couldn't believe there could be a more perfect way to depict the scene. At the novel's start, I will always remember the sentence, "At last the summer was like a green sick dream, or like a silent crazy jungle under glass."

I wish I could convey how much this book gripped me. It made me feel that my experiences were shared in a much deeper way than I ever could have imagined or hoped. "The Member of the Wedding" is funny, distressing, and deeply sad: as perfect a novel as I've ever read.