Finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Lambda Literary Award, winner of the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award, winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award
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"An unpretentious, moving record of love at the margins."
-The New Yorker
"The kind of state-of-the-form reckoning that makes one wish there were more like it."
-Megan O'Grady, The New York Times Book Review
“In lucid, distilled, honest prose, Jenn Shapland teaches us about McCullers, the desire for recognition, loneliness, the complexities of queer history, the seductions and resistances of the archive, and, all throughout, love.”
- Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
"Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is a monumental achievement. In this genre-bending work of nonfiction, Shapland brings the full weight of her intellect to bear on one of literature’s most important questions: How do queer readers find the truth―and themselves―between the lines?"
-Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
“You don’t have to be a Carson McCullers fan to admire this remarkable book. It’s a biography that’s also a memoir, a story of obsession and longing. Captivating and trenchant and moving, Shapland’s genre-mixing debut will stay with me a long time.”
-R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
“You do not need to be a queer woman, a lover of Carson McCuller's fiction, or interested in the mysterious junctures between our own lives and those of our favorite artists to love this book, but for those of us who are those things, Jenn Shapland's memoir is a particular trove of delights. My favorite biographies are full of historical literary gossip and interested in the shadow selves of public persons. My favorite memoirs are those that scrutinize the self as an unreliable source of narrative truth and the one we must nonetheless rely upon. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers manages to do all of this in earnest and honest and riveting vignettes. It is a detective story and a dissection of selfhood, a puzzle every piece of which pleased me as it clicked into place.”
-Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me and Whip Smart
“Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is indeed part autobiography, part criticism, part memoir, and 100% human, reminding us of how books and writers can take our hands and lead us to uncover the mystery of our hearts. I’ve never read a book quite like it.”
-Ann Hood
-R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
“You do not need to be a queer woman, a lover of Carson McCuller's fiction, or interested in the mysterious junctures between our own lives and those of our favorite artists to love this book, but for those of us who are those things, Jenn Shapland's memoir is a particular trove of delights. My favorite biographies are full of historical literary gossip and interested in the shadow selves of public persons. My favorite memoirs are those that scrutinize the self as an unreliable source of narrative truth and the one we must nonetheless rely upon. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers manages to do all of this in earnest and honest and riveting vignettes. It is a detective story and a dissection of selfhood, a puzzle every piece of which pleased me as it clicked into place.”
-Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me and Whip Smart
“Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is indeed part autobiography, part criticism, part memoir, and 100% human, reminding us of how books and writers can take our hands and lead us to uncover the mystery of our hearts. I’ve never read a book quite like it.”
-Ann Hood
Available anywhere books are sold, especially your local bookstore.
Pick up a copy online at Bookshop.org.
Also available as an audiobook narrated by the author.
Pick up a copy online at Bookshop.org.
Also available as an audiobook narrated by the author.
