1937
Spends three and a half weeks in March with Reeves in Goldens Bridge in Westchester County, New York; becomes ill and returns to Columbus. Leads discussions on music in Columbus during summer. Marries Reeves on September 20, and moves to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he has a job as credit investigator.
1938
Works on “The Mute,” and submits outline to Houghton Mifflin fiction contest; wins second prize, earning $500 and acceptance of book upon completion. Moves with Reeves to apartment on Rowan Street in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in March. Visits family in Columbus in July. Carson and Reeves move to 119 North Cool Spring Street in Fayetteville in the fall.
1939
Finishes The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter during the spring and writes “Army Post,” a draft of the novel later entitled Reflections in a Golden Eye. Returns alone twice to Columbus; confides to her mother that marriage is in trouble. Starts work on “The Bride and Her Brother,” working title of The Member of the Wedding.
1940
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, dedicated to Reeves McCullers and her parents, is published by Houghton Mifflin on June 4; it receives wide acclaim from critics and becomes a best seller. (May Sarton writes, “It is hard to think that we shall have to wait a year or two before we can expect another book from this extraordinary young woman”; Richard Wright praises “the attitude toward life which enables Miss McCullers to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness.”) With Reeves, McCullers leaves Fayetteville in mid-June for New York City and moves into apartment in Greenwich Village at 321 West 11th Street. In July, through her editor Robert Linscott, meets Thomas Mann’s children (Erika, Golo, and Klaus), W. H. Auden, and Annemarie Clarac-Schwarzenbach, Swiss writer for whom she develops intense emotional attachment. Invites Clarac-Schwarzenbach to join her during two-week summer residency at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Middlebury, Vermont; Clarac-Schwarzenbach refuses, writing to Klaus Mann: “I thought I had acted with all due caution and had treated her gently, but she is waiting for me to arrive from one day to the next, convinced that I am her destiny.” At Bread Loaf McCullers revises Reflections in a Golden Eye and meets Eudora Welty, Wallace Stegner, and Louis Untermeyer, who becomes a close friend. Leaves Reeves and moves with Auden and George Davis (fiction editor of Harper’s Bazaar) in September to 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights (house’s other residents will from time to time include Richard Wright, Klaus and Erika Mann, Paul and Jane Bowles, Benjamin Britten, Christopher Isherwood, and Gypsy Rose Lee). Reflections in a Golden Eye serialized in Harper’s Bazaar (October–November). Ill during winter, she travels to Columbus to recuperate and encounters negative hometown reactions to Reflections in a Golden Eye, including telephone threats supposedly from the Ku Klux Klan. Returns to New York briefly after receiving word that Clarac-Schwarzenbach, recently confined to the psychiatric wing of a Connecticut hospital, has fled to the city; the two spend several days together before the Swiss writer is served with commitment papers. Essay “Look Homeward, Americans” published in Vogue in December.
1941
Essay “Night Watch Over Freedom” published in Vogue in January. Suffers cerebral stroke in February, temporarily losing sight and experiencing debilitating headaches, and is bedridden for more than a month. Reflections in a Golden Eye, dedicated to Clarac-Schwarzenbach, is published by Houghton Mifflin on February 14, to mostly disappointing reviews. Essays “Brooklyn Is My Neighbourhood” and “Books I Remember” appear in the March issue of Vogue and April issue of Harper’s Bazaar, respectively. Is visited in April by Reeves, with whom she returns to New York City. Through poet Muriel Rukeyser, Carson and Reeves meet composer David Diamond in May; the three become constant companions, acknowledging the intensity of their feelings for one another. Marriage is troubled by quarrels and heavy drinking. After meeting with Elizabeth Ames, director of Yaddo arts colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, accepted for residency there, June–August; meets Katherine Anne Porter and Newton Arvin and works on novella The Ballad of the Sad Café. In July, essay “We Carried Our Banners—We Were Pacifists, Too” published in Vogue and essay “The Russian Realists and Southern Literature” published in Decision, magazine edited by Klaus Mann. Writes short stories “Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland” and “Correspondence,” both published within the year in The New Yorker. Reeves confides to Diamond: “We simply are not husband and wife any more. . . . It just doesn’t make sense our staying together.” McCullers considers divorce after learning that Reeves has forged checks on her account after moving to Rochester, New York, in order to live closer to Diamond. Travels to Quebec in August with Newton Arvin and Granville Hicks and his family. Story “The Jockey” published in The New Yorker. Returns to New York from Yaddo in September and files for divorce. The Dream of Audubon, ballet by Diamond, is dedicated to Carson and Reeves. Returns to Columbus in mid-October; is ill with pleurisy, strep throat, and pneumonia in December and is hospitalized.
1942
Continues work on The Member of the Wedding and completes short story, “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” Short story “Correspondence” published in The New Yorker in February. Divorce becomes final; Reeves reenlists in army on March 19. McCullers is awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in March. Receives letter from Clarac-Schwarzenbach, who is now living in seclusion in the Congo and translating Reflections in a Golden Eye into German. Visits Georgia during spring; after returning briefly to New York, goes to Yaddo in late June. Her poem “The Twisted Trinity” (early version of “Stone Is Not Stone”) set to music by Diamond. Completes The Ballad of the Sad Café in November. “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” published in Harper’s Bazaar and selected for anthology O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories of 1942. Moves to Pine Tree studio at Yaddo in November. In December, learns of Annemarie Clarac-Schwarzenbach’s death in a bicycle accident in Switzerland.
1943
Ill during January and February from infection due to broken jawbone (incurred accidentally during molar extraction). Leaves Yaddo and moves back to the Brooklyn Heights house. Mother comes to Brooklyn to take care of her, then returns with her in April to Columbus. McCullers publishes essay “Love’s Not Time’s Fool” in April Mademoiselle, signed “By a War Wife.” Receives $1,000 Arts and Letters Grant from American Academy of Arts and Letters and National Institute of Arts and Letters in April. After receiving conciliatory letter from Reeves, Carson meets him in Atlanta and in Columbus in May. Essay “Isak Dinesen: Winter’s Tales” appears in The New Republic, June 7. Resides at Yaddo, June–August; meets Alfred Kazin. The Ballad of the Sad Café published in August Harper’s Bazaar. Returns to Columbus due to father’s illness. Shocked to receive an anonymous letter accusing her of anti-Semitism in The Ballad of the Sad Café, writes to Kazin, Arvin, Diamond, and others asking for advice and seeks unsuccessfully to publish a letter in her defense in Harper’s Bazaar. Stays with Reeves at Fort Dix in late October, and they discuss remarriage; the couple meet with David Diamond in New York City on October 31.
1944
Ill with flu and pleurisy during January and February; learns that Reeves, now stationed overseas, has been injured in a motorcycle accident. Tries to find job as a war correspondent. Reeves is wounded in D-Day invasion on June 6. McCullers is at Yaddo, June–August. Father dies in Columbus on August 1, and she returns for funeral. With her mother and sister, Rita (now in New York working for Mademoiselle), moves to apartment in Nyack, New York, in September. The Ballad of the Sad Café is reprinted in The Best American Short Stories of 1944. Spends Christmas at Yaddo.
1945
Sick with flu during January. Meets Reeves in New York City after his return from England; they remarry on March 19. Mother, with money from her husband’s estate, buys house at 131 South Broadway in Nyack, in May. McCullers completes The Member of the Wedding at Yaddo, June–August; refuses offer to publish it with Random House. Essay “Our Heads Are Bowed” appears
in November issue of Mademoiselle. Reeves returns to Nyack at Christmas.
1946
Reeves receives physical disability discharge from the army in March. The Member of the Wedding, dedicated to Elizabeth Ames, is published by Houghton Mifflin on March 19; reviews are largely favorable, though McCullers is upset by Edmund Wilson’s negative assessment. She returns to Yaddo, March–May. Awarded second Guggenheim Fellowship in April. Makes plans with Reeves to live in France. At invitation of Tennessee Williams, who has written to her enthusiastically about her work, goes to stay with him on Nantucket during summer; he becomes a close friend. While on Nantucket begins dramatic adaptation of The Member of the Wedding. Sails with Reeves for Europe on November 22 on the Ile de France; in Paris spends time with Henri Cartier-Bresson (who had previously photographed her in Nyack), Janet Flanner, Kay Boyle, and meets many French writers including Colette, André Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir.
1947
Spends winter in Paris. Visits Natalia Danesi Murray, executive with her Italian publisher Mondadori, in Rome during April; welcomed by Alberto Moravia and other Italian writers. Suffers severe stroke in August; treated at American Hospital in Paris. In November has second serious stroke in Paris, which destroys lateral vision in right eye and paralyzes left side; hospitalized for three weeks at the American Hospital in Paris under care of Dr. Robert Myers. Struggling with paralysis from stroke, she and Reeves, who is suffering from delirium tremens, return to United States on December 1. Hospitalized at Neurological Institute at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital for most of December.
1948
Receives Mademoiselle Merit Award for 1947. In February Reeves moves from Nyack to New York City, where he finds work as an accountant for a radio station. McCullers writes to Columbus public library protesting its policy of racial segregation in March. Slashes wrists in suicide attempt and is admitted for a short time to Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. Hires part-time secretary for dictation and revises play The Member of the Wedding. Stage version, set for production by the Theatre Guild, becomes entangled in lawsuit over revisions by playwright Greer Johnson, which McCullers agreed to at Theatre Guild’s urging but later rejected; suit is settled out of court. During lawsuit, meets attorney Floria Lasky, who becomes her lawyer and financial adviser, and eventual literary executor. Attends national psychiatric convention in Washington, D.C., May 19, at invitation of a psychiatrist with whom she has been corresponding. After reconciliation with Carson, Reeves begins regularly visiting Nyack on weekends during the summer. “How I Began to Write” published in September Mademoiselle. McCullers joins Sinclair Lewis and twenty-six other writers in expressing public support for Harry S. Truman’s candidacy for president. Book version of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke, dedicated to McCullers, is published in November. Poems “The Mortgaged Heart” and “When We Are Lost” published in New Directions in Prose and Poetry.
1949
Spends January with Reeves at his apartment in Greenwich Village. Short story “Art and Mr. Mahoney” published in Mademoiselle in February. Travels to Columbus with mother on March 13. Returns abruptly to New York City a week later to give moral support to Elizabeth Ames when a small group of writers led by Robert Lowell attempts to have her replaced as Yaddo director because of alleged Communist connections; by the time of McCullers’s return, Ames has already been given a vote of confidence by Yaddo board. Visits Charleston, South Carolina, with Reeves in May to see friends Edwin Peacock and John Zeigler. Play version of The Member of the Wedding published by New Directions. In December, essays “Home for Christmas” and “Loneliness . . . An American Malady” published in Mademoiselle and This Week, respectively.
1950
After a two-week preview at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, The Member of the Wedding opens on Broadway on January 5, with a cast including Julie Harris, Ethel Waters, and Brandon deWilde; it wins Drama Critics’ Circle Award and Donaldson Award. She and Reeves move temporarily into the Dakota at 72nd Street and Central Park West. Essay “The Vision Shared” published in the April issue of Theatre Arts. Has reunion with piano teacher Mary Tucker in April. Story “The Sojourner” published in Mademoiselle in May. Travels to Ireland in May to visit novelist Elizabeth Bowen; spends time with Reeves in London and Paris in early June, before rejoining Bowen for several days in July. Separates from Reeves after their return to New York in August; stays with friends in New York while Reeves takes an apartment. Visits Tucker family in Virginia in the fall. Reconciles with Reeves after he volunteers for treatment of alcoholism. Meets Edith Sitwell at her reading (with Glenway Wescott) of scenes from Macbeth at the Museum of Modern Art in November; sends The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding to Sitwell, who responds with a letter of praise (“You are a transcendental writer”).
1951
Screen rights to The Member of the Wedding sold to Stanley Kramer. Buys Nyack home from mother in March. After 501 performances, The Member of the Wedding closes on March 17; book version published by New Directions. Omnibus edition The Ballad of the Sad Café: The Novels and Stories of Carson McCullers published by Houghton Mifflin in May. McCullers sails on the Queen Elizabeth for England on June 28 (Reeves accompanies her as stowaway, but they part company soon after the voyage); visits Edith Sitwell in London. Is hospitalized and undergoes hypnosis and other therapy in an attempt to treat the paralysis in left arm. Short story “A Domestic Dilemma” appears in the New York Post, September 16. Returns to America in October. Begins work on novel Clock Without Hands. Travels with Reeves to New Orleans; hospitalized for bronchial pneumonia and pleurisy shortly after return to Nyack.
1952
Sails with Reeves on the Constitution for Naples, Italy, on January 30. They stay in Rome, February–April, and see David Diamond shortly after their arrival. Moves with Reeves to house they purchased in Bachivillers, France, a village thirty-five miles north of Paris. McCullers inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters, in absentia, in May. Poem “The Dual Angel” appears in the Italian literary magazine Botteghe Oscure and in the July issue of Mademoiselle. During summer returns to Nyack to see mother, who has suffered a heart attack and a fall. Reviewing British edition of The Ballad of the Sad Café in the August 2 New Statesman and Nation, V. S. Pritchett calls McCullers “the most remarkable novelist to come out of America for a generation.” McCullers goes to Rome with Reeves in September; works briefly on film script for David O. Selznick’s Terminal Station, to be directed by Vittorio De Sica (released twice in the U.S., as Terminal Station and Indiscretion of an American Wife), before being replaced by Truman Capote. Hospitalized for exhaustion for a week in October at Salvador Mundi Clinic in Rome; returns with Reeves to Bachivillers in November. Socializes with friends from American Hospital in Paris at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Film version of The Member of the Wedding, featuring stars of Broadway production and directed by Fred Zinnemann, opens.
1953
“The Pestle,” Part I of Clock Without Hands, published in Mademoiselle and Botteghe Oscure in July. Marriage approaches breaking point as both drink heavily and Carson learns that Reeves has again forged her name on checks. In late summer Reeves attempts suicide and tries to talk Carson into committing suicide with him. She returns to the United States, and mother returns to Nyack to care for her. Reeves commits suicide in Hôtel Chateau Frontenac in Paris on November 18. McCullers learns of his death while visiting author Lillian Smith in Clayton, Georgia. Travels from Clayton to Augusta to visit with psychiatrist friend, Dr. Hervey Cleckley, in November. Essay “The Discovery of Christmas” published in the December issue of Mademoiselle. Television adaptation of short story “The Sojourner” is broadcast on CBS program Omnibus on December 27.
1954
Finishes essay “The Great Eaters of Georgia,” which will be published posthumously in the Oxford American in 2005. Makes lecture appearances with Tennessee Williams, February–May. Delivers lecture on May 8 at Poetry Ce
nter of the 92nd Street YMHA in New York. Completes draft of play The Square Root of Wonderful at Yaddo, April–July. Meets Marilyn Monroe in New York City. Visits Charleston and Charlotte. Spends time in New York City at the home of Robert and Hilda Marks. Introduced to theater producer Arnold Saint Subber, who offers to produce Square Root; the two become close friends.
1955
Travels with Tennessee Williams to Key West in April, where she meets Françoise Sagan (who later would write, “In my view this woman was the best, certainly the most sensitive, writer in America at that time”); spends weekend with Williams in Cuba. Mother dies of a heart attack in Nyack on June 10. Short story “The Haunted Boy” published in Mademoiselle and Botteghe Oscure in November.
1956
Works with Saint Subber on revision of The Square Root of Wonderful. “Who Has Seen the Wind?” (a fictional treatment of the play) published in September Mademoiselle. Health continues to deteriorate; paralyzed left arm begins to atrophy.
1957
Story “Mick” published in February Literary Cavalcade. The Member of the Wedding opens at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in February. Poem “Stone Is Not Stone” appears in the July issue of Mademoiselle. The Square Root of Wonderful goes into rehearsal in September, and tryouts begin in Princeton and Philadelphia in October; George Keathley replaces José Quintero as director. McCullers’s short essay about the production’s difficulties around The Square Root of Wonderful published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, October 13. The Square Root of Wonderful opens at the National Theatre on Broadway on October 30, with a cast including Anne Baxter and Jean Dixon, to generally poor reviews; closes December 7 after forty-five performances.