Understanding Carson McCullers - Paperback

by Virginia Spencer Carr (Author)

The definitive introduction to the complex author of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Updated with a discussion of recent scholarship, Understanding Carson McCullers provides a balanced introductory study of the Georgia-born novelist's major fiction and the reasons for her extraordinary and lasting acclaim. Carson McCullers was deemed the "find of the decade" when she appeared on the literary scene at the age of twenty-three and is best remembered for her celebrated novels The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding. Through Virginia Spencer Carr's insightful discussion and lucid analysis of these and lesser-known works, McCullers is shown here as more than a southern writer, more than a lesbian novelist. McCullers emerges as a complex and multifaceted artist not yet fully comprehended and deserving of more contemplative study and thoughtful understanding.

Author Biography

Virginia Spencer Carr was honored with the Southern Historical Association's Francis Butler Simkins Prize for her biography of Carson McCullers, The Lonely Hunter, and the Council of Authors and Journalists Nonfiction Prize for her biography of John Dos Passos, Dos Passos: A Life. Both volumes were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Now retired, Carr is the John B. and Elena Diaz Verson Amos Distinguished Professor Emerita of English Letters at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she served for eight years as chair of the Department of English.