The Member of the Wedding (1946) - Carson McCullers

Written by Carson McCullers
Read by Susan Sarandon
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
Release date: 03-08-12
Publisher: Brilliance Audio for Audible Studios

The best way to experience this classic of the American South is by joining five-time Academy Award nominee and Best Actress winner Susan Sarandon as she guides the listener on a journey through the anguish of adolescence and isolation.

“Rarely has emotional turbulence been so delicately conveyed,” said The New York Times of Carson McCullers’ sensitive portrayal of Frankie Addams

The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an “unjoined person.” Frankie’s mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family’s African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She has no friends in her small Southern town and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their honeymoon in the Alaskan wilderness.

The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters and is more concerned with evocative settings than with incident. Frankie does, however, have a brief and troubling encounter with a soldier. Her hopes of going away are disappointed and, her fantasy destroyed, a short coda reveals how her personality has changed. It also recounts the fate of John Henry West, and Berenice Sadie Brown’s future plans.

This book has been had many staged versions, an acclaimed motion picture, and a television series as recently as 2007. It is also used in class-rooms as required reading.

Susan Sarandon does her best to breathe life into this coming-of-age story by Carson McCullers. Unfortunately, it’s short on action and long on troubling situations and the alienation of the somewhat unpleasant 12-year-old protagonist, Frankie. Sarandon uses her voice well to convey all the emotions of a troubled girl who is searching for a place to belong. But Frankie is not a very sympathetic character, and the plodding pace of the story does nothing to engage the listener. Bernice, the black housekeeper, is the most sympathetic character. Sarandon gives her the compassionate voice of a mother figure as she offers support and understanding to the lost Frankie. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2012,