Ernest Hemingway. Willa Cather. Ralph Ellison. Truman Capote. William Faulkner. These are just some of the authors who have shaped and led the American literary canon for decades. Another is Carson McCullers, perhaps one of the most consistently underrated wunderkinds of our country’s cultural legacy. The author of novels, plays and short stories that will maintain their integrity and forever be a prime example of creativity unbounded, McCullers had a tumultuous and often uncomfortable life, albeit a short one.

In this, the first comprehensive biography of McCullers’ life and work in more than 20 years, Mary V. Dearborn presents the most well-rounded and perceptive look at this enigmatic genius. Pulling from the reports of McCullers’ personal adventures in therapy, she offers a portrait of a troubled woman whose issues and diseases eventually were turned into literary gold.

"Dearborn’s writing style is smooth, engaging and easy to follow.... CARSON McCULLERS is an exemplary and thorough look at the life of one of the greatest novelists of all time. It’s a big book full of big ideas that needs to be read, page by page, like all good biographies should."

From THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, her first highly celebrated published novel, to THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, the play that launched a young Julie Harris to stardom, to THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFÉ, one of the most outlier love stories ever put to paper, McCullers studied and paid tribute to the world of the outsider, bringing stories about loners and social outcasts and their non-trivial struggles to the fore. She started with a strong relationship with Whit Burnett, the editor of Story magazine, who had read her work in her classes with him at Columbia University. The young woman from the Deep South spoke in a poetic and pure voice that would draw attention to her at a very early age. Barely out of her teens, McCullers was becoming a cause célèbre.

The cast of characters who surrounded her was just as far-reaching and famous: her gay husband, Reeves, who struggled to write and excelled at drinking; her beautiful and supportive mom, Bébé, also a category-one alcoholic; her good friends, playwright Tennessee Williams and bawdy performer Gypsy Rose Lee; and her supporter and celebrator, the wondrous Isak Dinesen. McCullers ran in celebrated circles, smoked and drank, and wrote her way into their lives and hearts with a bravado befitting this almost six-foot-tall queen of language and storytelling. Although downed by her substance abuse and myriad physical ailments, she lived and loved her life to the fullest, dying at a young age with so many successes behind her.

From her first attempts at writing to the first woman she ever loved and lost to the psychological profile from her very own therapist, CARSON McCULLERS enumerates her strange and elegant oddness without judgment. Dearborn’s writing style is smooth, engaging and easy to follow. The author’s ability to define McCullers bit by bit, giving such a real look at her timeline and her shifting personalities and demeanors --- depending on the relationship and the writing she was involved in at the time --- allows readers an opportunity to feel as if they are very much following in her footsteps as she moves through her complicated but celebrated life. Her politics, sexuality and ability to write from extreme vulnerability, with touches of comedy and satire as well as profound seriousness, are on constant display here. There is not one moment when Dearborn lets go of the reins.

I named my child after McCullers, sometimes wishing that I hadn’t been a fan of someone with such big problems and lofty talents, but there is no one else like her in American literary history. Spanning the decades, she created her own permanent niche, a world of the Deep South full of hard-won convictions and dreamy hopes for romance among too many glasses of wine, and a cultural history that included racism and misogyny, which she isn’t afraid to explore and expose.

McCullers would have been quite comfortable in today’s world, probably coming out as non-binary or trans along the way. The difficulty of growing up a girl in the 20th century is not lost on her or on us. Her exploits, manipulations and resolve showed how hard she worked to be her authentic self, even when it lost her important relationships. CARSON McCULLERS is an exemplary and thorough look at the life of one of the greatest novelists of all time. It’s a big book full of big ideas that needs to be read, page by page, like all good biographies should.

Don’t miss out on this excellent tome.