Reflections in a Golden Eye (novel)
First edition cover with paper and cellophane dust jacket
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| Author | Carson McCullers |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre |
Southern Gothic Gay novel |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
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Publication date
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1941 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 182 pp |
| OCLC | 44518055 |
| 813/.52 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3525.A1772 R4 2000 |
Reflections in a Golden Eye is a 1941 novel by American author Carson McCullers.
It first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1940, serialized in the October–November issues. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin on February 14, 1941, to mostly poor reviews. The book was dedicated to the Swiss journalist, travel writer and novelist Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942), whom McCullers had met and befriended in the summer of 1940 (after the book was finished).
McCullers wrote the piece in 1939, originally using the title "Army Post". She said the story had germinated when, as an adolescent, she had first stepped into the alien territory of Fort Benning in Georgia. A more direct inspiration came from a chance remark which her husband Reeves (an ex-soldier) made to her about a voyeur who had been arrested at Fort Bragg (North Carolina) - a young soldier who had been caught peeping inside the married officers' quarters.
McCullers wrote the novel while in Fayetteville, North Carolina. After two months of arduous writing, she finished her manuscript and put it away in a dresser. She later said of it:
"I am so immersed in my characters that their motives are my own. When I write about a thief, I become one; when I write about Captain Penderton, I become a homosexual man. I become the characters I write about and I bless the Latin poet Terence who said 'Nothing human is alien to me.'"
The novel takes place at an army base in the U.S. state of Georgia. Private Ellgee Williams, a solitary man full of secrets and desires, has served for two years and is assigned to stable duty. After doing yard work at the home of Capt. Penderton, he sees the captain's wife nude and becomes obsessed with her.
Capt. Weldon Penderton and his wife Leonora, a feeble-minded Army brat, have a fiery relationship and she takes many lovers. Leonora's current lover, Major Morris Langdon, lives with his depressed wife Alison and her flamboyant Filipino houseboy Anacleto, near the Pendertons.
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