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A review by shimmery
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland
3.0
Carson McCullers is one of my 2 favourite writers of all time, and I probably would have enjoyed this book a lot more were it not for that fact.
The author acknowledges this during the book — that when we feel an affinity to an author or other figure from the past we often find it frustrating to read other people’s accounts of them. There will always be an element of projection involved which is why we ourselves love them; when we read biographies we want to see our own version of our hero and not this other person’s version.
The central premise of this book is that Carson was a lesbian — I don’t disagree that she was queer, in fact I thought everyone knew that (all the people I know who love her are queer). So it felt a little repetitive at times going round in circles with a point-evidence-explanation style of writing with the point always that Carson was a lesbian and the evidence ranging from her having a chance conversation with a lesbian to her having years long relationships with women. The inclusion of the former kind of evidence I felt took away from the latter. The author is also not prepared consider any other kind of queerness (e.g. bisexuality) as fitting for Carson — it’s lesbian or nothing. And some of the writing around this I found a little bizarre, again taking away from the thoughtfulness of the book e.g. ‘Let’s call a lesbian a lesbian. Call yourself a lesbian if you’ve ever loved women. Loved another woman. Period. You loved your mother? Lesbian.’
I would have liked to have read more about Carson’s life — as it is this is a book about Jenn Shapland, which is to be fair expressed in the title ‘my autobiography.’
To end on a petty note, I could concede to all but one of the author’s projections, and that is her asserting that Carson was an aquarius (the author herself is an aquarius). Carson is a pisces and is surely one of the most archetypal pisces that ever lived?!
The author acknowledges this during the book — that when we feel an affinity to an author or other figure from the past we often find it frustrating to read other people’s accounts of them. There will always be an element of projection involved which is why we ourselves love them; when we read biographies we want to see our own version of our hero and not this other person’s version.
The central premise of this book is that Carson was a lesbian — I don’t disagree that she was queer, in fact I thought everyone knew that (all the people I know who love her are queer). So it felt a little repetitive at times going round in circles with a point-evidence-explanation style of writing with the point always that Carson was a lesbian and the evidence ranging from her having a chance conversation with a lesbian to her having years long relationships with women. The inclusion of the former kind of evidence I felt took away from the latter. The author is also not prepared consider any other kind of queerness (e.g. bisexuality) as fitting for Carson — it’s lesbian or nothing. And some of the writing around this I found a little bizarre, again taking away from the thoughtfulness of the book e.g. ‘Let’s call a lesbian a lesbian. Call yourself a lesbian if you’ve ever loved women. Loved another woman. Period. You loved your mother? Lesbian.’
I would have liked to have read more about Carson’s life — as it is this is a book about Jenn Shapland, which is to be fair expressed in the title ‘my autobiography.’
To end on a petty note, I could concede to all but one of the author’s projections, and that is her asserting that Carson was an aquarius (the author herself is an aquarius). Carson is a pisces and is surely one of the most archetypal pisces that ever lived?!