Carson McCullers

Tall, awkward, and lonely, Frankie Addams has a vivid imagination but no friends. She spends most of her time in the kitchen, pouring out her heart to Berenice, the gentle family cook and housekeeper. Frankie's jealousy of her brother's impending marriage, and her curious belief that she must accompany him and his bride on their honeymoon in order to belong, drives her to strange measures. She devises a desperate plan, reinventing herself as the seemingly...

This collection assembles Carson McCullers' best stories, including her study of love and longing "The Ballad of the Sad Café." 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 café serves as the town's gathering place. Among other works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind," McCullers' first published story, written when she was only...

Miss Amelia runs the town's only cafe and controls the locals through the careful distribution of her secretly brewed hooch. Her eccentric existence is threatened with the arrival of a dwarf who claims kinship and the reappearance of her rejected husband.