"In The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940), one of the most extraordinary debuts in modern American literature, an enigmatic deaf-mute draws out the confessions of an itinerant worker, a young girl, a doctor, and a widowed cafe proprietor.

The disfiguring violence of desire is explored with shocking intensity in two shorter works, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), a tale of murder and madness at an army base, and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1943), a grotesquely imaginative exploration of love's outer boundaries. The Member of the Wedding (1946), thought by many to be her masterpiece, hauntingly depicts a young girl's fascination with her brother's wedding. In 12-year-old Frankie Addams, confused, easily wounded, yet determined to survive, McCullers created her most indelible protagonist. Clock Without Hands (1960), her final novel, was completed against great odds in the midst of tremendous physical suffering.

Set against the background of court-ordered school integration, it contains some of McCullers' most forceful social criticism."--BOOK JACKET.