When she was only twenty-three, Carson McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She was very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal. The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. "From the Paperback edition."

New York Times bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley presents a modern retelling of the literary classic Beowulf, set in American suburbia as two mothers—a housewife and a battle-hardened veteran—fight to protect those they love in The Mere Wife. This modern fantasy tale transports you from the ancient mead halls of the Geats to the picket-fenced, meticulously planned community of American suburbia, known as Herot Hall. In the expert hands of Maria Dahvana Headley, this vibrant retelling underscores the timeless struggle between the protected and the outsiders. Enter the confines of Herot Hall, a gated community sequestered from the wild surroundings by sophisticated security systems. Here, life is a series of cocktail hours and playdates for Willa, the charming wife of Herot's heir, and her son Dylan. Meanwhile, deep in a nearby mountain cave lives Dana, a hardened soldier and mother of Gren, a child of mysterious origin. Their worlds collide in a shocking turn of events when Gren breaks into Herot Hall and escapes with Dylan. A brilliant literary novel that effortlessly melds modern literature with ancient mythology, The Mere Wife is a captivating testament to unintended consequences, the brutality of PTSD, and the enduring power of motherhood.

With the publication of her first novel, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness. She writes with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming, said the NEW YORK TIMES. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.

A novel that became an award-winning play and a major film, and that has charmed generations of readers, The Member of the Wedding is a story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly bored with her life until she hears about her older brother’s wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old cousin—and her own unbridled imagination—Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, even hoping to go (uninvited) on the honeymoon. This story is a marvelous study of the agony of adolescence and of wanting to be part of something larger and more accepting than yourself. The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.

Winner of the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for the National Book Award Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction How do you tell the real story of someone misremembered—an icon and idol—alongside your own? Jenn Shapland’s celebrated debut is both question and answer: an immersive, surprising exploration of one of America’s most beloved writers, alongside a genre-defying examination of identity, queerness, memory, obsession, and love. Shapland is a graduate student when she first uncovers letters written to Carson McCullers by a woman named Annemarie. Though Shapland recognizes herself in the letters, which are intimate and unabashed in their feelings, she does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. Her curiosity gives way to fixation, not just with this newly discovered side of McCullers’s life, but with how we tell queer love stories. Why, Shapland asks, are the stories of women paved over by others’ narratives? What happens when constant revision is required of queer women trying to navigate and self-actualize in straight spaces? And what might the tracing of McCullers’s life—her history, her secrets, her legacy—reveal to Shapland about herself? In smart, illuminating prose, Shapland interweaves her own story with McCullers’s to create a vital new portrait of one of our nation’s greatest literary treasures, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.

A reprint of the 1941 novel about the sad and tragic lives of the Pendertons and the Langdons, two military couples living on an army base in the American South in the 1930s.