The member of the wedding by Carson McCullers Beautiful book about adolescence and yearning. Frankie is a 12 year old Southern girl with her brother’s wedding looming in the near future, a wedding she is imagining is just as important for her as it is for her brother and his fiancé and that it will change her life. Her conversations around the kitchen table with her house keeper Berniece and her friend Henry are funny and dark and insightful about the fragile human condition. We can all relate to Frankie and her desire to escape and explore at her age and her need that this wedding will do this for her. The main theme of the book has to do with life's universal rules, as Frankie attempts to grow up and seek membership into the adult world, she discovers that certain life rules encumber her. She is alone, she will not be able to join her brother this division of her family unit echoes in the division she explores with Berenice about race discrimination which also is a new life lesson for Frankie. Frankie is a wonderful character and the atmosphere of the American deep South and Frankie’s awakening are both evocative and moving.
Frankie is a wonderful character and the atmosphere of the American deep South and Frankie’s awakening are both evocative and moving.
Carson McCullers was a much celebrated radical literary figure in her time, who lived during the 1950s in a Brooklyn brownstone with other influential writers of the era. At this residence McCullers held a lunch for Marilyn Monroe and Isak Dinesen ( author of Out of Africa) during which they all told secrets and ended up dancing on the table until the small hours. Carson McCullers is also the author of the more famous “ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” 1940 that she wrote was she was 23 and “The Ballad of the Sad Cafe” 1951. I can’t recommended them and her highly enough. She and her books are fascinating.
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