Book Review: The Member of the Wedding, a novel by Carson McCullers (1946)

The Member of the Wedding was Carson McCullers’ third novel. Published in 1946, the slim volume tells the story of Frankie Addams, a precocious 12-year-old who is obsessed with her brother’s upcoming wedding. During the summer, Frankie has become increasingly isolated, and most of her world revolves around having listless, repetitive conversations with Berenice, the Black housekeeper who takes care of Frankie, and Frankie’s cousin, 6-year-old John Henry. As the narration tells us, “They had played cards after dinner every single afternoon; if you would eat those old cards, they would taste like a combination of all the dinners of that August, together with a sweaty-handed nasty taste.” (p.17) McCullers also describes Frankie’s boredom in this passage: “Every afternoon Frankie said exactly the same words to Berenice, and the answers of Berenice were always the same. So that now the words were like an ugly little tune they sang by heart.” (p.31) 

Frankie wants nothing more than to leave her sleepy little town and see the world, and she has convinced herself that her brother and his fiancée will want to take her along with them as they start their new life together.  In the second part of the book, the narration changes to refer to Frankie as “F. Jasmine,” her middle name, as part of her new attempt at refinement as she prepares to bid her small town goodbye. She walks through the town, telling anyone she runs across about the wedding and her new life that is about to begin. F. Jasmine discovers “It is far easier...to convince strangers of the coming to pass of dearest wants than those in your own home kitchen.” (p.59) Anyone who has ever had a deep conversation with someone you just met on an airplane can relate to that statement. F. Jasmine has many different thoughts as she walks through the town that morning “And of all these facts and feelings the strongest of all was the need to be known for her true self and recognized.” (p.62) 

The focus of The Member of the Wedding is narrower than McCullers’ first novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, as Frankie is the only character whose head we get inside of. But it’s still an effective book, because McCullers is able to so completely enter Frankie’s psyche. The book is really a character study of Frankie. McCullers really understood the adolescent experience. It’s so common for people to go through what Frankie is going through: you think that no one understands you, and these feelings are often accompanied by a yearning for escape.

I read the 2004 Mariner Books edition of The Member of the Wedding, and while it’s a nice enough presentation of the novel, Mariner needed some help with the proofreading. There are shoddy errors throughout the book—missing punctuation, quotation marks that never close—that should have been easily caught. There’s also one passage where em dashes that look like this — have been replaced by the equal sign. Sigh. 

But the sloppy proofreading does not detract from the wonderful sentences that McCullers crafts, and the beautiful, heartbreaking portrait of adolescence in The Member of the Wedding.

Movie Review: EPiC-Elvis Presley in Concert, Directed by Baz Luhrmann (2025)

While director Baz Luhrmann was researching his 2022 biopic about Elvis Presley, titled simply Elvis, he discovered numerous rolls of film that were shot for the 1970 documentary Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, but hadn’t been seen for decades. That footage forms the basis for Luhrmann’s concert film/documentary EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2025 and was just released nationwide.  

Elvis Presley in Concert is an amazing look at one of the most transformative musicians of the 20th century. The film is narrated by Elvis himself, and it’s refreshing to hear Elvis’s own thoughts and feelings about his career. We watch Elvis and his band rehearsing for his third residency in Las Vegas during the summer of 1970, and it’s so fun to watch Elvis having so much fun. In 1970, Elvis Presley might have been at the peak of his powers. His voice was rich, warm, and inviting. He looked great, still showing the slim and trim physique fans would remember from the 1968 Comeback special. Elvis was relaxed, funny, and confident. He was also changing up his setlists more. In the summer of 1969, during his return to live performing in Las Vegas, Elvis’ setlists leaned heavily on his 1950’s hits. That’s no complaint, as his 1969 shows were amazing and energizing. But during 1970, as Elvis was growing in confidence, he was adding more musical variety to his concerts. Elvis was dressing mostly in white jumpsuits on stage, as he had discovered that white made him stand out more on the Las Vegas stage. (Side note: I want Graceland to start making versions of the beautifully colored shirts Elvis was wearing to rehearsals in 1970.) Elvis loved performing live, and you can see from Elvis Presley in Concert that he was putting everything he had into his performances. If I had a time machine to see Elvis at any point during his career, I might very well set the controls to 1970.  

Elvis Presley in Concert shows us how Elvis was influenced by so many different genres of music, and how his concerts were a mixture of blues, gospel, country, pop and rock and roll. I find it really fascinating that Elvis opened most of his concerts during the 1970’s with an old blues song, “See See Rider” (sometimes spelled “C.C. Rider”) popularized by Ma Rainey in a 1924 recording. Elvis could have opened his concerts with one of his many hit singles, but instead he chose an old blues song that he had never even recorded a studio version of. A highlight of the movie is Elvis’ passionate version of the gospel song “How Great Thou Art,” which we see and hear him sing in 1972, in footage that was filmed for the concert movie Elvis on Tour. It’s a spine-tingling moment to hear him belt out “How Great Thou Art.” Elvis still looked great in 1972, and we see him in an array of colorful jumpsuits: powder blue, royal blue, and red. It’s easy to make fun of Elvis’ jumpsuits—they’ve become a staple of every Elvis impersonator, and it’s easy to see them as 1970’s excess that Liberace would surely have approved of. But being at Graceland in the summer of 2023 and seeing Elvis’ jumpsuits up close was very cool, and I’ve come to appreciate how they were all singular works of art. Those jumpsuits aren’t just what anyone would wear—they’re what a star would wear, and it’s fitting that an artist as iconic as Elvis had such a distinctive stage wardrobe.  

It’s amazing to see Elvis’ effect on his fans. Elvis was surprisingly available to his fans during concerts. During his 1970 Las Vegas engagement, he would walk through the audience from one end to the other, bestowing kisses and handshakes as he went. As the 1970’s went on, it became an Elvis trademark to throw scarves to his fans during his concerts. It might sound like hyperbole to say that Elvis’ fans were having a religious experience seeing him in person, but it’s hard to think of another word or term that fits. Viewers of Elvis Presley in Concert can see for themselves the devotion that Elvis inspired in his fans. Seeing photos and videos of Elvis with his fans, and reading their stories of meeting him, I’m struck by Elvis’ kindness towards his fans, and I think that speaks highly of the man he was.  

Luhrmann shows us an excerpt of Elvis at his 1972 press conference in New York City, just before he played Madison Square Garden, where he’s asked a question about Vietnam war protestors. Elvis responds, “I’d just as soon keep my own personal views about that to myself; I’m just an entertainer.” Then Luhrmann shows us Elvis in 1970 reciting a stanza from a song written by Hank Williams, “Men with Broken Hearts.” It ends with the couplet: “For the God that made you made them too/these men with broken hearts.” Elvis adds, "I'd like to sing a song along the same lines,” and then launches into a spirited rendition of Joe South’s song “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” a plea for empathy and understanding. Luhrmann was thinking the same thing I was—it doesn’t matter that Elvis didn’t say anything about Vietnam war protestors, the real message that Elvis was giving us was in his music. Songs like “If I Can Dream,” “In the Ghetto,” and “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” show Presley’s social concerns, even if he didn’t get on a soapbox and lecture his audience.  

Two of the highlights of the movie are “Polk Salad Annie” and “Suspicious Minds,” which both become high energy extended workouts, and examples of Elvis’ powerful charisma and sex appeal.  

Watching Elvis Presley in Concert, we see Elvis getting immersed in the music, and that’s my favorite Elvis to see. Total commitment was the trademark of all of his great performances, from “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” on his TV debut in 1956, to his beautiful and moving rendition of “Unchained Melody,” taped at his final concerts just two months before his untimely passing on August 16, 1977.  

It’s a thrill to see Elvis Presley and his music back in the mainstream of pop culture, 70 years after his national breakthrough and almost 50 years after his death. If you’re an Elvis fan, go see Elvis Presley in Concert, you’ll be reminded all over again why he was so wonderful. 

Book Review: Novelist as a Vocation, by Haruki Murakami (2015, English translation 2022)

The Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has had a long and successful career since publishing his first novel in 1979. Murakami seldom makes public pronouncements, but in 2015 he published a book about his life as a writer. Titled Novelist as a Vocation, the book was translated into English in 2022 by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen.  

Novelist as a Vocation is an interesting book, as Murakami keeps saying that he doesn’t really have anything to teach us about being a writer. But yet he’s written a whole book about being a novelist. There were a number of times while reading the book when I thought “Huh, you know what? This Murakami guy is really a unicorn. A unique novelist, if I may be allowed to say so.” He says he’s never had writer’s block. (p.34-5) He doesn’t carry around a notebook, “It’s a real pain to carry a pad around.” (p.77) And he doesn’t write novels just for money, “My own personal policy for many years has been not to write novels because I’ve been contracted to or requested to, but I might be a rare case.” (p.113) All of these things led me to the conclusion that Murakami is a very rare case indeed. Murakami also tells us that he’s never appeared on TV or the radio to promote his books. (p.179) That’s all well and good for Murakami, but I hope he knows that many writers would love to have the opportunity for the media exposure that TV and radio would bring them.  

I enjoyed reading Novelist as a Vocation, as I’m always interested in writer’s processes. Murakami is a creature of habit, and he has obviously paid attention to French novelist Gustave Flaubert’s advice: “Be regular and ordinary in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” This could be almost a mantra for Murakami, who follows much the same routine while he’s writing and produces about 1,600 words a day. (p.95) I understand that the daily accumulation of words is what is most important about writing a novel, but sometimes I wish a novelist would say “Yeah, I usually write 1,500 words a day, but sometimes I’m really cooking and push it to 2,000 or 2,500!” I’ve never heard any writer say this. They always say variations on what Murakami says, “So I punch in, write my ten pages, and then punch out, as if I’m working on a time card.” (p.95) There is a contrast I can think of: Thomas Wolfe supposedly marched around New York City chanting “I wrote ten thousand words today! I wrote ten thousand words today!” That’s an extreme example, of course. But I’d love to hear more novelists acknowledge that sometimes chance and inspiration play more of a role in their daily routines and word counts.  

As a baseball fan, I appreciate Murakami recounting the moment when he decided to write a novel: it happened at a baseball game in 1978, as Dave Hilton belted a double. And I agree with Murakami: “To fully appreciate a baseball game, you really have to be there in person!” (p.26)  

I loved this quote from the book: “It is my belief that a rich, spontaneous joy lies at the root of all creative expression.” (p.67) Murakami has a democratic, egalitarian view of the artistic process, and that strongly appeals to me. I won’t make the claim that all of us can become novelists who are as successful as Murakami has been, with healthy sales and a high critical reputation, but there’s always the possibility. And that should give every aspiring artist hope.