Reviews

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