This one didn't do it for me. ( )

Carson McCullers' last book she wrote. I thought it was better than the one I just read, but still not as good as Lonely Hunter. I believe I've read all of her fiction now. Maybe missing some short stories and essays.

If you care to read this book keep in mind it's reads a little slow I think. The subject matter in this book is heavy. Maybe some of her heaviest yet. It goes into racism, depression, and rape. I was kind of shocked to see her throw in the word "fuck" a few times at the end. This also makes this book one of her more interesting tales.

After reading so many of her works, she is still one of my favorite authors. I feel like I'm a character within her books. ( )

Saves itself at the end. McCullers does lonely and unfulfilled promises better than anyone but here it comes perilously close to tipping over into ennui, a forgotten trombone v. a trombone solo at a jazz funeral. She rescues the ship in the last 30 pages but not before forgetting to bring strong characters and a vivid setting on board.

Worst of the 3 I've read but still McCullers, the genius. Will press on and read "Golden Eye" and "Sad Cafe." ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12889045

A glimpse into a small southern town during the time that segregation was challenged, and white southerners were faced with the possibility of having to sit next to a black person on the bus. Characters in the novel express a range of views, most of them against the federal mandates.

The center of the novel is J.T. Malone, however, who has just been told he has leukemia and that it is terminal. It is his life that seems like a clock without hands, as he struggles with the diagnosis. He bumps up against the months, feeling the injustice, hoping the doctors are exaggerating, coming to grips with reality.

It's a revealing portrait of a town and a man, and possibly even a good representation of what it is like for many facing death. ( )

I found this less brilliant and engaging than Reflections or Heart. the ending scenes are incredible and breathtakingly sad- and i thought of mcculler's own illness at the time and how mortality, which is one of the novel's key themes, must have very much been on her mind. ( )