My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir

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 misrememberedan icon and idolalongside your own? Jenn Shaplands celebrated debut is both question and answer: an immersive, surprising exploration of one of Americas 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 McCullerss 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 McCullerss lifeher history, her secrets, her legacyreveal to Shapland about herself? In smart, illuminating prose, Shapland interweaves her own story with McCullerss to create a vital new portrait of one of our nations greatest literary treasures, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.