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THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE - And Other Stories: Wunderkind; The Jockey; Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland; The Sojourner; A Domestic Dilemma; A Tree - a Rock - a Cloud
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April 16, 2026
Sad songs say so much
One of the two things I could recall about Carson McCullers was an anecdote describing how she'd been running down a street in New York when a crucial plot point of the novel she was writing came to her. It's a good story, which only gets better with added detail: at the time [early 1940s], she was sharing a house on Middagh Street in Brooklyn with WH Auden, Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten and... Gypsy Rose Lee. Apparently, both she and Carson loved fires, and they'd jumped up impulsively and run out of the house hand in hand to chase a fire engine when she was struck by a moment of illumination about a character in The Member Of The Wedding, which was the novel she was working on at the time.
That story came to me as I bought this little collection from a fine second hand bookshop a few days ago (the other thing was how its title inspired the name of the UK band Sad Cafe). The main story is a masterpiece, whose characters are expertly delineated: Miss Amelia, the lonely owner of a small-town store in the South, Cousin Lymon, the strutting hunchback whom she falls in love with and hence turns her store into the eponymous cafe, and Marvin Macy, her rejected husband and third protagonist in an unlikely love triangle. There's not a word out of place in the setting - thus, Miss Amelia's whisky ("clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man it glows inside") is compared to the fire which reveals a hidden message written with lemon juice on a sheet of paper; a man who drinks the liquor "has warmed his soul and seen the message hidden there" [p15].
Later, we have the astonishing detail that, when Cousin Lymon wanted to ingratiate himself with someone, he "would stand very still, and, with just a little concentration, he could wiggle his large pale ears with marvellous quickness and ease" [p59]. In a bravura passage on p66, we learn that "no value has been put on a human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for", and the cafe is described as a location where "for a few hours at least, the deep bitter feeling that you are not worth much in this world could be laid low". The novella ends with "The Twelve Mortal Men", a brief, extraordinary coda, which is seemingly unrelated to the main story: a chain-gang working on the highway who sing as they work: "music which causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright" [p85]. Just perfect.
The other stories in this collection are tiny pieces of lapidary brilliance, including "Wunderkind", about a young girl grappling with her fading confidence on the piano (McCullers trained as a concert pianist when she was young; this story was published when she was 19); "The Sojourner", a haunting story that explores themes of identity, displacement, and the cost of exile, and "A Domestic Dilemma", about alcoholism in a young family. Each has its own distinctive tone and emotional impact; I was reminded of the short stories of JD Salinger or Truman Capote.
An extraordinary book: strongly recommended.
One of the two things I could recall about Carson McCullers was an anecdote describing how she'd been running down a street in New York when a crucial plot point of the novel she was writing came to her. It's a good story, which only gets better with added detail: at the time [early 1940s], she was sharing a house on Middagh Street in Brooklyn with WH Auden, Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten and... Gypsy Rose Lee. Apparently, both she and Carson loved fires, and they'd jumped up impulsively and run out of the house hand in hand to chase a fire engine when she was struck by a moment of illumination about a character in The Member Of The Wedding, which was the novel she was working on at the time.
That story came to me as I bought this little collection from a fine second hand bookshop a few days ago (the other thing was how its title inspired the name of the UK band Sad Cafe). The main story is a masterpiece, whose characters are expertly delineated: Miss Amelia, the lonely owner of a small-town store in the South, Cousin Lymon, the strutting hunchback whom she falls in love with and hence turns her store into the eponymous cafe, and Marvin Macy, her rejected husband and third protagonist in an unlikely love triangle. There's not a word out of place in the setting - thus, Miss Amelia's whisky ("clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man it glows inside") is compared to the fire which reveals a hidden message written with lemon juice on a sheet of paper; a man who drinks the liquor "has warmed his soul and seen the message hidden there" [p15].
Later, we have the astonishing detail that, when Cousin Lymon wanted to ingratiate himself with someone, he "would stand very still, and, with just a little concentration, he could wiggle his large pale ears with marvellous quickness and ease" [p59]. In a bravura passage on p66, we learn that "no value has been put on a human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for", and the cafe is described as a location where "for a few hours at least, the deep bitter feeling that you are not worth much in this world could be laid low". The novella ends with "The Twelve Mortal Men", a brief, extraordinary coda, which is seemingly unrelated to the main story: a chain-gang working on the highway who sing as they work: "music which causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright" [p85]. Just perfect.
The other stories in this collection are tiny pieces of lapidary brilliance, including "Wunderkind", about a young girl grappling with her fading confidence on the piano (McCullers trained as a concert pianist when she was young; this story was published when she was 19); "The Sojourner", a haunting story that explores themes of identity, displacement, and the cost of exile, and "A Domestic Dilemma", about alcoholism in a young family. Each has its own distinctive tone and emotional impact; I was reminded of the short stories of JD Salinger or Truman Capote.
An extraordinary book: strongly recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review