Carson McCullers: Mary Dearborn with Bill Goldstein

The first major biography in more than twenty years of one of America’s greatest writers, based on newly available letters and journals

Carson McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia. Her dream was to become a concert pianist. As a child, she said she’d been “born a man.” At twenty, she married Reeves McCullers, with whom she had a fraught, tumultuous marriage that ended with his suicide in 1953. She yearned for attention, mostly from women who admired her but rebuffed her sexually. Her first novel—The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—was published in 1940, when she was twenty-three, and overnight, Carson McCullers became the most widely talked about writer of the time. With unprecedented access to materials that have surfaced in the past decade, Mary Dearborn gives us the first full picture of this complex artist who was decades ahead of her time.

Mary Dearborn worked on Carson McCullers during her 2018-2019 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She will discuss the book with critic and biographer Bill Goldstein. 

To join this event in-person | Please be sure to register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form shortly before the program.

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COVID PROTOCOLS FOR IN-PERSON CONVERSATIONS FROM THE CULLMAN CENTER 

The New York Public Library no longer mandates proof of vaccination at indoor public programs.

Patrons are strongly encouraged to wear a mask at Conversations from the Cullman Center events.

If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Mary V. Dearborn holds a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the humanities. She is the author of seven books—among them, Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim and Ernest Hemingway. She lives in Buckland, Massachusetts.

Bill Goldstein reviews books and interviews authors for NBC's Weekend Today in New York, and was the founding editor of the New York Times books website. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Goldstein received a PhD in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center. His book, The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and the Year that Changed Literature, was published in 2017. He is writing a biography of Larry Kramer, to be published by Crown, and worked on the book as a 2019–2020 fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. 

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The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.