Charlotte Perkins Gilman Book

By all accounts Carson McCullers was a complicated woman. Opinions of her personal life tend to be curiously polarized so that her acquaintences portray her either as an angel with gossamer wings or else a despotic bitch.

Mme. Savigneau endeavors with this biography to present an apologia for Ms. McCullers. Yes, Carson could be at times an alcoholic wretch. But, as Savigneau rightly points out, Ms. McCullers was part of a generation of hard-drinking enfant teribles from the South. Substance abuse was part of being a writer at the time. If Carson was a pariah, or was narcissistic or self-destructive then she was in good company with Truman Capote and her personal friend and mentor Tennesee Williams. Mme. Savigneau posits that Carson was a remarkably progressive woman for her time, and as such she was misunderstood, and continues to be misunderstood by her critics.

The "Carson is so great" tone of the book got a little old after two hundred pages or so. This is not an objective biography. At times it felt like I was reading a giant fan letter written from Savigneau to her subject.

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I picked up this biography to learn more about the twenty-three year old author who penned the most beautiful book I have read this year, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. What I learned is that Carson grew up to become the cliche of the Unhappy Author: suicidal, sick, neurotic, chasing her problems to the bottom of a bottle. I am currently reading a biography of John Cheever, and I find the fates of these apparently disparate writers to be sadly similar: constantly drunk, desperate, self-absorbed, locked into destructive relationships.

I set down this book wondering if this is the inevitable plight of the serious artist. Is there any way to create a masterpiece without sacrificing your sanity, not to mention the sanity of your friends and family? Does the pursuit of greatness ultimately end in destruction?

Blerg. I will now go out happily into the afternoon sunshine to purge myself of the raincloud that this book left in my brain.