More than thirty years after it was written, the autobiography of Carson
McCullers, Illumination and Night Glare, will be published for the
first time. McCullers, one of the most gifted writers of her
generation--the author of Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a
Golden Eye, and The Ballad of Sad Cafe--died of a stroke at the age
of fifty before finishing this, her last manuscript. Editor Carlos L.
Dews has faithfully brought her story back to life, complete with
never-before-published letters between McCullers and her husband Reeves,
and an outline of her most famous novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Looking back over her life from a precocious childhood in Georgia to her
painful decline from a series of crippling strokes, McCullers offers
poignant and unabashed remembrances of her early writing success, her
family attachments, a troubled marriage to a failed writer, and
friendships with literary and film luminaries (Gypsy Rose Lee, Richard
Wright, Isak Dinesen, John Huston, Marilyn Monroe), and the intense
relationships of the important women in her life.