About this item

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is an audacious new form of nonfiction that remakes the boundaries between criticism, biography, and autobiography in search of two identities.While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson and a woman named Annemarie -- letters are that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters' language -- but does not see Carson as history has portrayed her.And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of Carson's life: She wades through the therapy transcripts; she stays at Carson's childhood home, where she lounges in her bathtub and eats delivery pizza; she relives Carson's days at her beloved Yaddo.



About the Author

Jenn Shapland

Jenn Shapland is a writer living in New Mexico. Her nonfiction has been published in O, the Oprah Magazine, Tin House, Outside ?online, and elsewhere. Her essay "Finders, Keepers" won a 2017 Pushcart Prize, and she was awarded the 2019 Rabkin Foundation Award for art journalism. She has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is her first book.



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