My Autobiography of Carson McCullers

A Memoir

By: Jenn Shapland

Narrated by: Jenn Shapland

Winner of the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

Winner of a Lambda Literary Award

Finalist for the National Book Award

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

How do you tell the real story of someone misremembered - an icon and idol - alongside your own? Jenn Shapland’s celebrated debut is both question and answer: an immersive, surprising exploration of one of America’s most beloved writers, alongside a genre-defying examination of identity, queerness, memory, obsession, and love.

Shapland is a graduate student when she first uncovers letters written to Carson McCullers by a woman named Annemarie. Though Shapland recognizes herself in the letters, which are intimate and unabashed in their feelings, she does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. Her curiosity gives way to fixation, not just with this newly discovered side of McCullers’s life, but with how we tell queer love stories. Why, Shapland asks, are the stories of women paved over by others’ narratives? What happens when constant revision is required of queer women trying to navigate and self-actualize in straight spaces? And what might the tracing of McCullers’s life - her history, her secrets, her legacy - reveal to Shapland about herself?

In smart, illuminating prose, Shapland interweaves her own story with McCullers’s to create a vital new portrait of one of our nation’s greatest literary treasures, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.

©2020 Jenn Shapland (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"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

"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

"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

"Jenn Shapland's narration of her audiobook embodies a deeply personal journey.... Her performance feels like an intimate podcast. Shapland's voice reflects her self-discovery, making this listening experience seem far too short." —AudioFile Magazine

Incredible

An incredible work of nonfiction, complex and honest and beautifully queer and full of the care of an archivist.

Needed/Powerful

The book works on at least four levels: as a reclamation of one of the principle threads of McCuller’s life, as a reclamation of Shapland’s own personal narrative, as a powerful assertion of the need for Queer narratives of the present and past, even in the face of (historical) obfuscation and suppression, and as an imagining of what one such narrative might look like.

Stunningly deep.

Never self-effacing, constantly self reflective. The author pulls from Carson's real-life experiences and her own experiences to map out a life as it hasn't been examined before

Decent Story, Needs a professional reader

The book and the premise were interesting, but this would serve as exhibit A of why you need a professional reader. This book is read by the author. Her reading lacks any emotion at all, like listening to someone read the dictionary. In fact I took to playing it when I couldn't fall asleep, worked like a charm.