With delicacy of perception and memory, humour and pathos, Carson McCullers spreads before us the three phases of a weekend crisis in the life of a motherless twelve-year-old girl. Within the span of a few hours, the irresistible, hoydenish Frankie passionately plays out her fantasies at her elder brother's wedding. Through a perilous skylight we look into the mind of a child torn between her yearning to belong and the urge to run away.
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About the Author
Carson McCullers was born in 1917. She is the critically acclaimed author of several popular novels in the 1940s and '50s, including The Member of the Wedding (1946). Her novels frequently depicted life in small towns of the southeastern United States and were marked by themes of loneliness and spiritual isolation. McCullers suffered from ill health most of her adult life, including a series of strokes that began when she was in her 20s; she died at the age of 50. The Member of the Wedding was dramatized for the stage in the 1950s and filmed in 1952 and 1997. Other films based on her books are Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967, with Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968, starring Alan Arkin) and The Ballad of the Sad Café (1991).
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First Sentence
It happened that green and crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It happened that green and crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By A. Turner
Format:Paperback
Throughout the authors life she wrote about lonliness and love, usually unrequited. These themes are brilliantly realised in this small novel about a weekend in the life of Frankie, a twelve year old girl unsure of herself and the world. There isn't much plot, and in parts it seems to move on leisurly, taking time over small details, but you are never bored because every detail seems to be whipped up with realistic emotion and perfectly placed within the story. The language is similarily thoughtout, often it boarders on poetic, but than at the moments of highest drama Mccullers draws back into a declarative objective tone. This book feels so real, the charecters, and most of all the things the author puts into words that you have only felt before. I'm blathering, but in short BRILLIANT. Read and read again.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Eileen Shaw
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Twelve-year-old Frankie Addams spends the end of a long summer sitting in the kitchen playing bridge with her six-year-old cousin, John Henry and the `coloured' housekeeper, Bernice. Her mother died giving birth to her and her father works all day and most of the evening at his jewellery store.
Frankie has a wild imagination, deep feelings and a strong but dreamy intelligence. Her older brother is about to get married and she fixes upon the idea that he and his wife will take her with them on their honeymoon.
With faultless depth of understanding and insight, Carson McCullers allows her readers to see what it is like to be twelve years old, on the brink of being someone different, but unable to understand how such a thing can come about. Frankie doesn't understand how the world works, but Bernice who has been married three times, does, and she tries to impart what wisdom she can to the girl placed in her charge. Frankie is wilful, obstinate and heart-breakingly naïve and some of the situations she places herself in would give a modern parent palpitations.
This is quite a short novel, but entrancingly beautiful, with prose that haunts like poetry. It is a masterpiece, bringing a time, a place and a culture blazingly, brilliantly to life.
Frankie has a wild imagination, deep feelings and a strong but dreamy intelligence. Her older brother is about to get married and she fixes upon the idea that he and his wife will take her with them on their honeymoon.
With faultless depth of understanding and insight, Carson McCullers allows her readers to see what it is like to be twelve years old, on the brink of being someone different, but unable to understand how such a thing can come about. Frankie doesn't understand how the world works, but Bernice who has been married three times, does, and she tries to impart what wisdom she can to the girl placed in her charge. Frankie is wilful, obstinate and heart-breakingly naïve and some of the situations she places herself in would give a modern parent palpitations.
This is quite a short novel, but entrancingly beautiful, with prose that haunts like poetry. It is a masterpiece, bringing a time, a place and a culture blazingly, brilliantly to life.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Carson Mccullers creates a masterpiece in the adaptation and writing of The Member of the Wedding. Memorable characters are created through the dialog, and the significant meanings in the play are tied up wonderfully in an entertaining storyline. Frankie epitomizes youthfulness and insecurity, while still presenting herself as a unique character. Her mother figure and houskeeper, Berenice, not only teaches Frankie about life, but about living life as it should be lived. John Henry is pure mischevious innocence, and all the other characters complete the story of a family with problems that still manages to function. Mccullers tackles the issue of acceptance versus taking action to change ones situation through the events that surround Frankie and her friends, T.T. and Honey. The issues of adolescence are placed in a humorous light in the aftermath of Frankie's spoken thoughts and actions, while T.T. and Honey must face bigger challenges of prejudice and inequality.
Personally, I thought the play was really funny, but sad at the same time. That's why I'm giving it a ten. It was a fast, entertaining read.
Personally, I thought the play was really funny, but sad at the same time. That's why I'm giving it a ten. It was a fast, entertaining read.
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3.3 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
'they are the we of me'
Absolutely amazing read; I just marvelled that the author still had such a vivid recollection of the feelings of a twelve year old, and was able to express them so well. Read more
Published 7 months ago by sally tarbox
5.0 out of 5 stars
Member of the wedding
I am surprised how few people have heard of this book- it's one of my favourites and I keep buying it to give to friends. One of those books that you must read.
Published 12 months ago by MrNatural
5.0 out of 5 stars
`I wish I was somebody else except me.'
It's August 1944, and Frankie (Frances) Addams is a twelve-year-old girl living in the American south. Frankie is frustrated and bored, she feels like she no longer belongs. Read more
Published 22 months ago by J. Cameron-Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant.
I absolutely loved this book. A concise and beautifully written book in which every word counted, but no word was surplus. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2009 by Pamela
4.0 out of 5 stars
A DARK AND MELONCHOLIC COMING OF AGE STORY...
This is a book about Frankie Adams, a twelve year old girl coming of age in the South during World War II. Read more
Published on 30 July 2009 by Lawyeraau
3.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing novel, humourous but ultimately too short
As can be gathered from the earlier reviews there is a lot to like about this book. It is well written and creates an excellent realistic atmosphere and location for Frankie. Read more
Published on 29 July 2009 by H. Tee
4.0 out of 5 stars
DARK AND MELANCHOLIC COMING OF AGE STORY...
This is a book about Frankie Adams, a twelve year old girl coming of age in the South during World War II. Read more
Published on 26 Aug 2007 by Lawyeraau
1.0 out of 5 stars
very boring
This book was very tedious and pointless. Frankie seems very unrealistic and stupid . . .the whole book is based upon a stupid fantasy of hers. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 1999
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