Mary V. DearbornCritiques

In this literary biography, author Mary V. Dearborn examines the short, and in some ways tragic, life of Southern gothic writer Carson McCullers. It is a sad tale, filled with alcoholism, writer’s block, and unrequited love. To her credit, Dearborn does not depict the rather off-putting McCullers as any more appealing than she actually was. She also does not try to pigeonhole McCullers’s elusive sexuality.

Although the prose is unremarkable and the many characters in the narrative don’t really come to life, Dearborn does a thorough job of documenting McCullers’ life and works. Recommended for those interested in McCullers.

I received an electronic copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way.½

Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V Dearborn is the type of biography I love, well-written, well-researched, and including both the positives and the negatives of the subject. It certainly helps that I've long admired McCullers' work.

Reading this made me reflect on my introduction to McCullers when I was very young. I have no doubt I didn't fully grasp the nuance of the film version of The Member of the Wedding, but it had to have been in the mid-60s when I saw it, which puts me just a few years younger than Frankie. Maybe I could relate to her, but whatever it was I loved it and as I grew up I read the rest of her work. When I watch that movie now, I always wish I could go back and find out exactly what touched me so profoundly.

Dearborn gives both a more detailed account of McCullers' life as well as a compassionately critical view of her life and career. I not only feel like I understand the writer better, I am anxious to reread the works with this new appreciation of her life. Though, admittedly, the key to her work has always been my feelings for her characters, so I don't expect any great epiphanies. I do think I will gain some insight into the characters by having this new view of McCullers.

This will certainly appeal to those who like reading about literary figures, but it is so engaging I think anyone who simply likes biographies in general will find a great deal to enjoy.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

Mary Dearborn does great work to separate the Hemingway myth of his later years from the complicated and frustrating artist who won such acclaim. I was struck again and again by how fleeting the age of the novel was, and struggle to imagine an author ever capturing the public imagination again. The final chapters ran long in their focus on Hemingway's decline, and circumspect review of how his treatments (pharmaceutical, therapeutic, diagnostic) could have been improved just a few years later. The book does not hang well together in a short reading, with many anecdotes and observations re-hashed and reframed, as though the editors anticipated the book being serialized or excerpted; over explaining small details to ensure that a reader of a single chapter doesn't lack context left me constantly pulled out of the flow of the book thinking, "yes, didn't we just go over that?"

My sister gave me a gift card to half price books. I wanted Doris Kearns Godwin latest, but having never darkened 1/2 price before, I soon realized new books are not their thing. I bought 3 history books. Guess I'm on a history jag after all those romance books.
Once I got into the book, I could not put it down and read it in three sittings, one advancing well into the wee hours.

Louise is a GREAT character and I will search out more about her. Though I doubt much can be added to this tale of triumph and woe, the references made to works of fiction using her as a template are intriguing.

Louise is an historical jewel.

I have probably read more about Hemingway then what he actually wrote. Second full biography and a few topic type books on him. This one digs deeply into the character and psyche of the man, and it's not a very nice picture. Hemingway was all about image and personna, but going beneath that veneer was a fairly troubled individual who in spite of his many friends and acquaintances managed to alienate quite a few of them.

His family history and relationships with parents and siblings set the stage for much of what played out in his life as is usually the case with most people. His writing much if not most autobiographically paints how he viewed himself as well as the many counter players. Dearborn captures much of these complexities and entanglements through his wives, family, and friends.

His tragic decline was inevitable and despite that ending we cannot say the man did not live much larger then most. Albeit in a world he created as much of fiction as his writing.

"There's no one thing that's true. It's all true." - Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway's version of "truth" draws a lot from the line in the film "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance": "When legend becomes fact, print the legend." He was inventing his own mythology before he was even out of his teens, transforming a one-week stint as a Red Cross ambulance driver in World War I into a enlistment in the Italian Army serving in the elite special forces of the Arditi Corps. Another 40+ years of tale-spinning to friends and journalists and the blurred crossover of non-fiction into fiction in many of the short stories and novels complicates the task of all the subsequent biographers.

Mary Dearborn unravels as much as can be currently done using the latest pieces of the puzzle that are gradually being unveiled to us through various other studies (e.g. those such as "Ernest Hemingway's a Moveable Feast" that examine the veracity of "A Moveable Feast", the ongoing & continuing Letters project "The Letters of Ernest Hemingway" (Volume 4 of 17 will be published as of September 2017) and the recent memoirs and biographies that have focussed on specialized topics and themes e.g. "Hemingway in Love: His Own Story", "Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961", "The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War", "Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow: The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage", "Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961".

Dearborn does especially draw attention to Hemingway's androgynous hair fetish, the love-hate relationship with youngest son Gregory (Gigi) Hemingway (who later transgendered into Gloria) and the final sad years of mental illness which may have been triggered as early as the concussion injury sustained in a World War II London car crash. Much of what was written post-WWII was never published at the time and some of it only in posthumous heavily edited forms such as the gender bending "The Garden of Eden" (probably too risque for both its late 40's writing time and the author's marketed image) and the various edited versions of the final African journey "True At First Light: A Fictional Memoir" and "Under Kilimanjaro". The ongoing Hemingway Library Edition may yet show us more of those unknowns as well although the story seems to be never-ending. Whatever questions fascinate you about this one person's life can likely never be fully answered and the journey itself becomes the goal. In that I see Hemingway as a stand-in for all humankind. Even with all of this ongoing documentation he is still a mystery and the subject of endless curiousity for us.

I read "Ernest Hemingway" in hardcover by Mary V.. Dearborn in parallel with the audiobook edition narrated by Tanya Eby. The narration was excellent and clear and well-paced.

#ThereIsAlwaysOne
Erratum
pg. 428 "...the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1941."
As most with a heritage from the Baltic States or Eastern Europe will know, the Hitler-Stalin Pact actually dates from August 22, 1939.

Trivia
Great use of a "Crook Factory"/"Operation Friendless"/"Hooligan Navy" image as the cover photo. The second use of this one I believe cf. The Crook Factory by Dan Simmons

Love affair between American philosopher John Dewey and Jewish immigrant writer Anzia Yerziorska

In 2006 bezocht ik het Peggy Guggenheim museum van de moderne kunst in Venetië. Ik vond er destijds niet veel aan. Toch besloot ik om dit boek te kopen toen ik het tegenkwam. Het boek is vlot geschreven en leest prettig weg. Peggy Guggenheim is bekend geworden door haar galerie in Londen voor de oorlog en vervolgens van haar galerie "Art of this century" in New York tussen 1942 en 1947 en haar museum in Venetië daarna.
De biografie beschrijft vooral haar seksleven en minder haar werk waar het eigenlijk om gaat. Geen aanrader!

Interesting and well researched biography of a complicated woman who was in many ways ahead of her time, yet also of her time. Occasionaly the writing is a bit hit and miss, but generally it had a good style and pace.

The content was quite interesting, but not well-written. Learning about Anzia Yezierska was worth wading through the information.