Illumination And Night Glare (1999)
Biography & Autobiography / Historical, - Biography & Autobiography / Literary Figures, - Biography & Autobiography / Women, - Literary Criticism / American / General, - Literary Criticism / Women Authors -
NOT_MATURE -
Carson McCullers
Overview
MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS AFTER IT WAS written, the autobiography of Carson McCullers, Illumination and Night Glare, will be published for the first time. McCullers -- one of the most gifted writers of her generation, author of The Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" -- died of a stroke at the age of fifty before finishing this, her last manuscript. Editor Carlos L. Dews has faithfully brought her story back to life, complete with never-before-published letters between McCullers and her husband Reeves, and an outline of her most famous novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.<p>Looking back over her life from a precocious childhood in Georgia to her painful decline after a series of crippling strokes, McCullers offers poignant and unabashed remembrances of her early writing success, her family attachments, a troubled marriage, friendships with literary and film luminaries (Gypsy Rose Lee, Richard Wright, lsak Dinesen, John Huston, Marilyn Monroe), and her intense relationships with the important women in her life.<p>When she was interviewed by Rex Reed in the Plaza Hotel on her final birthday, McCullers revealed her reason for writing an autobiography: <p>"I think it is important for future generations of students to know why I did certain things, but it is also important for myself. I became an established literary figure overnight, and I was much too young to understand what happened to me or the responsibility it entailed. I was a bit of a holy terror. That, combined with all my illnesses, nearly destroyed me. Perhaps if I trace and preserve for other generations the effect this success had on me it will prepare future artists to accept itbetter".