A member of
the Ferrum College English faculty was the featured guest at the
February meeting of The Roanoke Times Book Club. Dr. M. Katherine
Grimes, associate professor of English, led the book club’s discussion
of Carson McCuller’s novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The group
met at the downtown branch of the Roanoke Public Library on Tuesday,
Feb. 22, at 7 p.m.
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McCullers’ first novel,
published in 1940, is the story of an adolescent girl struggling to
reach adulthood in a small Southern town populated by a number of isolated
figures, many of whom ironically confide in a deaf mute. The novel,
published when McCullers was 23 years old, invokes a number of literary,
psychological, religious, social, and political issues which were addressed
in the book club discussion.
As a master’s degree candidate at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Grimes wrote a master’s
thesis on African-American characters in McCullers’ works. Dr. Grimes
subsequently earned her doctorate in 20th century American and British
literature at UNC Greensboro, writing a dissertation on absent mothers
in the fiction of several Southern American writers, including McCullers.
Dr. Grimes also earned a bachelor’s degree at Catawba College.
For more information about The Roanoke Times
Book Club’s discussion of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, visit the
Book Club web site. |
