false 3 0 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 1971 Fri May 22 11:43:27 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 14:02:00 -0700 2009 The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is more of a novella than a story, and takes up about half the pages of this collection. It this story, three people in a small town in Georgia in the early 20th-century --Miss Amelia- who is self-centered, mannish, and homely; Marvin, the man who inexplicably falls in love with Miss Amelia, and somehow persuades her to marry him, althought he marriage will last only a few days during which Amelia ignores and abuses him; and Amelie's cousin Lyman, a hunchback with whom Amelia falls in love. Yes, this who elongated story is very weird, and ends up as a kind of cautionary tale about how what goes around comes around. In short, Miss Amelie, who learned how to love, end up so betrayed that she can never love again. Carson McCullers is so versatile that many of the other stories in the collection are vastly different from the Sad Cafe. I especially liked "The Sojourner," because it takes place partly in Paris. It's about an American man who after the funeral of his father, returns to France with the stirrings of desire to finally open up to love and commit. Another touching story is "A Domestic Dilemma," about a loving husband and father who comes to realize he can no longer live with his dysfunctional, alcholic wife. The others stories are very fine, too. Carson McCullers is a real talent in mid-20th-century American literature.
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