The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Description

'Brilliant ... a panorama of a remarkable talent ... McCullers's finest stories' The New York Times A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers's best stories, including her beloved novella "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe." A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose cafe serves as the town's gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind," McCullers's first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist.

Carson McCullers was born at Columbus, Georgia, in 1917. She published The Heart is a Lonely Hunter at the age of twenty-three. Her other works include Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), The Member of the Wedding (1946), The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951), The Square Root of Wonderful (1958), a play, Clock Without Hands (1961), Sweet as a Pickle, Clean as a Pig (1964) and The Mortgaged Heart (published posthumously in 1972). She died in 1967.

Brilliant ... a panorama of a remarkable talent ... McCullers's finest stories * The New York Times * Unexpectedly moving, grimly amusing, intensely atmospheric * The Times * The greatest prose writer that the South produced ... She has examined the heart of man with an understanding that no other writer can hope to surpass -- Tennessee Williams Of all the Southern writers, she is the most apt to endure -- Gore Vidal