The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers

...best known for her books The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Café, both of which I have read in the past. I read them so long ago that I can't remember the stories, but I do remember being impressed, which is why I picked this book up. Carson McCullers has an interesting background. By the age of 31, she had suffered from a series of strokes and was completely paralysed down one side of the body. For years, she could only use one ...
.../> This story is about the life of a 12 year old girl, Frankie, whose brother is about to get married. Strangely unhappy with her life in the town where she lives, although not really aware why, she plans to leave with her brother and his wife to go on a round the world trip with them. Once she has done this, she is sure that everything will be right again. Over recent months, she has turned bad and begun to get herself into all sorts of trouble. ... more

Carson McCullers is probably best known for her books The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Café, both of which I have read in the past. I read them so long ago that I can't remember the stories, but I do remember being impressed, which is why I picked this book up. Carson McCullers has an interesting background. By the age of 31, she had suffered from a series of strokes and was completely paralysed down one side of the body. For years, she could only use one finger to type, yet she managed to make a successful career out of writing.

This story is about the life of a 12 year old girl, Frankie, whose brother is about to get married. Strangely unhappy with her life in the town where she lives, although not really aware why, she plans to leave with her brother and his wife to go on a round the world trip with them. Once she has done this, she is sure that everything will be right again. Over recent months, she has turned bad and begun to get herself into all sorts of trouble. Having lost his wife when giving birth to Frankie, Frankie's father, always close to Frankie, now feels that she is moving away from him and he finds it hard to handle her.

Frankie spends much of her time with the family servant, Berenice, who loves Frankie like a daughter, although Frankie often belittles her, and John Henry, a small cousin. On the verge of womanhood, she struggles to cope with the burgeoning feelings inside of her; the feeling that she doesn't belong where she is, but yet has no idea where it is that she should go.

The one thing that I couldn't really get to grips with in this book was Frankie herself. There was something about her, bearing in mind that this book was published in 1946, that just didn't quite ring true for a young girl of 12. It wasn't her behaviour - that all seemed perfectly natural - it was the way her mind worked. It just seemed to be too mature for a girl of that age from that time period in a small town where nothing much happened. I admit, it is a long time since I was 12, but her character just didn't sit right with me. This was a shame, because as Frankie is the central character, this coloured the rest of the book for me.

I loved Berenice though. She was very vividly described; both the way that she looked, black with a blue false eye and her past, having lived through four marriages and being about to embark on another. Her love for Frankie and John Henry comes shining through; in many ways she is the mother that Frankie never had, yet is unfortunately not able to exert full control over the wayward girl. In many ways, I actually came to care for Berenice far more than Frankie.

With regards to the story, well, there isn't really much of one. The book is divided into three parts. The first describes the period before the wedding, when Frankie is coming to terms with the fact that her brother is getting married and will be moving away; the second is the day before the wedding and the strange things that Frankie gets up to and the third is the wedding itself and the immediate period after it. This may sound boring, but it is actually not a boring book. It concentrates very much on feelings and how minor happenings could throw Frankie into a whirl of emotions, all of which is fascinating reading. In a way, the fact that I couldn't fully get to grips with Frankie made it more readable for me, because I hoped that it would all click into place on the next page or the page after that. It didn't, but it was still a good read, all the more so because it is not a long one.

Carson McCullers certainly knows how to write. Apart from her portrayal of the characters, who were very vividly drawn, the description of the town in which the book was set is also very colourful. I really felt that I could see and feel the summer heat and the dustiness and shabbiness of the dirty old Southern town.

As I said at the beginning, I can't quite remember the stories in The Ballad of the Sad Café and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. However, I do know that this book is not as good - not surprising really as this is not one of her best-known books. However, if you enjoy reading well-written books about people and their behaviour, then you'll like this and I can recommend it. If you like some action in amongst the descriptions, you won't. Simple as that.

The book is available from play.com for £5.99. Published by Penguin books, it has 192 pages. ISBN: 0141182822
 

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