My Autobiography of Carson McCullers

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My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
File:My Autobiography of Carson McCullers.jpg
AuthorJenn Shapland
LanguageEnglish
GenreMemoir, Biography
PublishedFebruary 4, 2020
PublisherTin House Books
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (paperback, hardcover)
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My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is a memoir by Jenn Shapland, published April 2, 2020 by Tin House Books. In 2021, the book won the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction,[1] the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir,[2] and the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award.[3] Along with being longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction,[4] it was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction[5] and a Stonewall Book Award Honor Book.[6]

Reception

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Reviews

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Prior to publication, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers was named one of the most anticipated queer books of the Year by Lit Hub,[7] BuzzFeed,[8] Forbes,[9] Electric Literature,[10][11] and Oprah Magazine.[12]

Following publication, the book received positive reviews from Booklist,[13] Kirkus Reviews,[14] The New York Times Book Review,[15] The A.V. Club,[16] Los Angeles Review of Books,[17] The Times,[18] Full Stop,[19] The New York Review of Books,[20] The Georgia Review,[21] Star Tribune,[22] The Rumpus,[23] Lambda Literary,[24] Autostraddle,[25] Library Journal,[26] The New Yorker,[27] and Open Letters Review.[28]

In various reviews, the book was called "revelatory",[29] "stimulating",[15] "gorgeous, brilliant", and "a moving record of love at the margins".[27] The New York Review of Books referred to it as "part fan letter, part detective story, and part steely corrective".[15]

The Los Angeles Times[30] and The New Republic[31] offered mixed reviews.

The Guardian's Rachel Cook provided a poor review, saying, "My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, as its too-clever-by-half-sounding title implies, is neither memoir nor biography... such a declaration cannot disguise the fact that her (over) identification with McCullers takes us nowhere that is very productive."[32] In a similarly disappointed review, Publishers Weekly said, "Shapland’s intermingled autobiography and biography of McCullers’s life unsatisfyingly blurs what is real and what is imagined."[33]

Awards

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Year Award Result Ref.
2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist [5][34]
2021 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir Winner [2]
Stonewall Book Award Honor [6]
Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Winner [1]
Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award Winner [3]
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Longlist [35]
Over the Rainbow Book List Top 10 [4]
Reading the West Book Award Honor [36]
Southern Book Prize Finalist [37]

References

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