My autobiography of Carson McCullers / Jenn Shapland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shapland, Jenn, 1987- author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shapland, Jenn, 1987-.

Shapland, Jenn.

Lesbians--United States--Biography.

Lesbians.

United States.

McCullers, Carson, 1917-1967.

McCullers, Carson.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xv, 266 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Portland, Oregon : Tin House Books, 2020.

Summary:

"While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson McCullers and a woman named Annemarie-letters that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters' language-but does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of McCullers's life: she wades through the therapy transcripts; she stays at McCullers's childhood home, where she lounges in her bathtub and eats delivery pizza; she relives McCullers's days at her beloved Yaddo. As Shapland reckons with the expanding and collapsing distance between her and McCullers, she sees the way McCullers's story has become a way to articulate something about herself. The results reveal something entirely new not only about this one remarkable, walleyed life, but about the way we tell queer love stories. In genre-defying vignettes, Jenn Shapland interweaves her own story with Carson McCullers's to create a vital new portrait of one of America's most beloved writers, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Articulation p. 3

Correspondence p. 5

The Soul's Particular Territories p. 12

Derangement, or Why I Write p. 19

Caves p. 24

Chick-fil-A p. 28

Tree Houses and Telephone Booths p. 30

That Girl p. 35

Qualifications p. 38

A Free Love p. 45

Unforeseen Events p. 54

Becomings p. 60

February House p. 67

Imaginary Friends p. 70

Prove It on Me Blues p. 76

Ambivalences p. 85

Convalescence p. 90

Parasites p. 94

Homebodies p. 95

My Rainbow Youth p. 98

Portals p. 106

Item 8 p. 107

Items 42-45 p. 108

Items Unlocated p. 109

Womanish p. 110

On Exposure p. 116

Conflation p. 120

The Hunt p. 121

Semantics p. 124

Separate Bedrooms p. 125

Androgyny p. 129

They/Them p. 134

Confidantes p. 137

The High Line p. 142

Threesomes p. 146

Recliner p. 150

Ontological Destabilization p. 155

Googling p. 159

Preaching p. 161

List of Carson's Possible Girlfriends p. 163

Other Likely Lesbians p. 165

Second Marriages p. 166

Fury and Disaster p. 172

In Sickness p. 175

Witch Hunt p. 181

This Mad Desire for Travel p. 186

Going West p. 191

Coping Mechanisms p. 195

Seismographs p. 200

Blue Chair p. 205

Organ p. 207

Last Love p. 209

Not Yet p. 211

First Loves p. 213

Dream p. 215

Matters of Taste p. 217

Dream p. 222

Your Name p. 223

Forensics p. 227

Expurgation p. 231

Lies, Secrets, and Silence p. 233

Myth Mania p. 235

Recognition p. 240

The Silencing Force p. 244

Proximity p. 245

Myopia p. 247

September 29, 1967 p. 248

September 29, 2016 p. 249

Love and Winter p. 250

The Dead p. 251

Dream p. 252

Note to Self p. 253

Euphemisms p. 254.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Lambda Literary Awards - Lesbian Memoir/Biography, Winner, 2021

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9781947793286

1947793284

OCLC:

1110673109