McCullers, one of the most gifted writers of her generation the author of "Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a Golden Eye, "and" The Ballad of Sad Cafe" died of a stroke at the age of fifty before finishing this, her last manuscript. In smart, illuminating prose, Jenn Shapland interweaves her own story with McCullers’s to create a vital new portrait of one of our nation’s greatest literary treasures, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.More than thirty years after it was written, the autobiography of Carson McCullers, "Illumination and Night Glare," will be published for the first time. Why, Shapland asks, are the stories of women paved over by others’ narratives? What happens when constant revision is required of queer women trying to navigate and self-actualize in straight spaces? And what might the tracing of McCullers’s life―her history, her secrets, her legacy―reveal to Shapland about herself? Her curiosity gives way to fixation, not just with this newly discovered side of McCullers’s life, but with how we tell queer love stories. Though Shapland recognizes herself in the letters, which are intimate and unabashed in their feelings, she does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. Shapland is a graduate student when she first uncovers letters written by Carson McCullers to a woman named Annemarie.
How do you tell the real story of someone misremembered―an icon and idol―alongside your own? Jenn Shapland’s celebrated debut is both question and answer: an immersive, surprising exploration of one of America’s most beloved writers, alongside a genre-defying examination of identity, queerness, memory, obsession, and love.
“Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is a monumental achievement." ―Carmen Maria Machado FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
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