The Member of the Wedding - by Carson McCullers (Paperback)

About the Book

"A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence" ("Detroit Free Press"), "The Member of the Wedding"--which became an award-winning play and a major motion picture--showcases McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and best.

Book Synopsis

From the master of Southern Gothic, Carson McCullers's coming-of-age story like no other about a young girl's fascination with her brother's wedding.

Twelve-year-old Frankie is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother's wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her family maid, Berenice, and her six-year-old cousin--not to mention her own unbridled imagination--Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be a member of something larger, more accepting than herself.

Review Quotes

"Entirely winning....Rarely has emotional turbulence been so delicately conveyed." -- New York Times

"A serious attempt to recapture that elusive moment when childhood melts into adolescence . . . touching." -- Time

"There is an almost perfect harmony between the them of this book ad the prose in which it is expressed, for the prose is lyrical and sensitive and always fresh." -- Chicago Tribune

"McCullers's best. An unusual story of a very sensitive child . . . [that] holds you by the very brilliance of its writing." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[The Member of the Wedding] is poignantly and arresting, amazingly perceptive and exquisitely wrought." -- Boston Herald

"[McCullers] has never done anything better than this." -- Washington Times-Herald