Reflections in a Golden Eye

US: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publis, 1994. Paperback. Fair. A new trade paperback edition of McCullers' second novel, REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, immortalized by the 1967 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, and John Houston. Set on a Southern army base in the 1930s, REFLEC TIONS tells the story of Captain Penderton, a bisexual whose life is upset by the arrival of Major Langdon, a charming womanizer who has an affair wit h Penderton's tempestuous and flirtatious wife, Leonora. Upon the novel's p ublication in 1941, reviewers were unsure of what to make of its relatively scandalous subject matter. But a critic for Time Magazine wrote, "In almos t any hands, such material would yield a rank fruitcake of mere arty melodr ama. But Carson McCullers tells her tale with simplicity, insight, and a ra re gift of phrase." Written during a time when McCullers's own marriage to Reeves was on the brink of collapse, her second novel deals with her tradem ark themes of alienation and unfulfilled loves.