Carson McCullers: Stories, Plays & Other Writings (LOA #287): Complete stories / The Member of the Wedding: A Play / The Sojourner / The Square Root ... (Library of America Carson McCullers Edition) Hardcover – January 24, 2017

Hard to find

A compelling collection of great Southern lit. You will love it.

I gave 4 stars only because she takes my Lord's name in vain. Otherwise, she is a fabulous writer. Because I am a Christian, I stopped reading the book.

Carson McCullers is my favorite Southern writer and her most important work are her four brilliant novels: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a Golden Eye and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, all included in the companion collection to this book, Complete Novels, which also contains her final novel, Clock Without Hands, which is fine, though, a lesser work, for sure. Before starting this collection, read her novels.This book contains the majority of her life's writings, other than her novels, including three versions of The Sojourner, a short story, a play and a script for TV, which is first-rate McCullers. The short story, Sucker, written when she was a teenager, already has her storytelling style nailed down and is not dissimilar to The Member of the Wedding, which came a decade later. Her short stories, many of which revolve around studying classical music, are not as memorable as the novels, but there are a few classics including Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland, which is hilarious and I'm guessing that there must be some amount of reality to this wild tale, as it's more imaginative than all of her other stories put together. McCullers turned her novel, The Member of a Wedding, into a hit play and it's fairly short and very clever. She acknowledges somewhere in this volume that her play, The Square Root of Wonderful, also included here, was a mess. The essays and unfinished autobiography are enjoyable reading for McCullers fans like myself, but the writing is slight. McCullers lived a tragic, but very full life, achieving much success in her time, despite multiple personal catastrophes.

Bought for my daughter as present on her request. She was v happy with it.

After reading the collected novels of Carson McCullers in the Library of America edition some years ago, I hoped that a second companion volume might be produced. I had very much enjoyed the novels and was keen to explore her other writings.This volume has now appeared and contains short stories, essays, an unfinished autobiography, plays and a handful of poems. I am very pleased that it exists and have enjoyed reading it though it didn't, as a whole, quite scale the heights of the volume of McCullers' novels. The stories are not all consistently brilliant and the autobiography clearly isn't finished but holds interest for the light it sheds on the author's life. But McCullers clearly can write and this tends to trump other considerations.Recommended, then, for fans of McCullers' writings. But others should start wth the novels.