The Member of the Wedding

Rating:
Summary: Depressing, but worthwhile
Review: This book presents a very bleak view of coming-of-age with a style that seems to be deliberately suggestive of a child's nightmare. The prose is impressionistic, almost dizzyingly so at times. The plot isn't much to brag about, but I suppose she wasn't going for plot. It was worth reading once, but I don't think I'll come back to it too often.

(As an aside, the reviewer who claimed it was unrealistic that a soldier might try to pick up a 12-year-old girl irritated me a little bit. First of all, some soldiers simply do want 12-year-old girls--just ask some of the folks in the Phillipines, Japan, Okinawa, Vietnam etc. Secondly, McCullers makes it abundantly clear that F. Jasmine is taller and looks older than she is. I'm not sure how anyone could've missed that.)