| Virginia Spencer Carr | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 21, 1929 West Palm Beach, Florida |
| Occupation | Biographer |
| Genres | Biography, Literary criticism |
| Notable work(s) | The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers |
Virginia Spencer Carr (born July 21, 1929 in West Palm Beach, Florida) is an award-winning biographer of Carson McCullers, John Dos Passos and Paul Bowles.[1][2]
Carr was also a college professor for more than 25 years at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, and Georgia State University in Atlanta.
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Virginia Spencer Carr not only researched and wrote extensively about her subjects, but developed personal relationships with them - in particular Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles.
Carr first met Tennessee Williams in the early 1970s when she was in the preparatory stages of writing her biography on Carson McCullers, The Lonely Hunter.
Over the years, the two of them meet many times to discuss McCullers as well as other literary luminaries of Williams’ social circle. As a result, a friendship ensued and Carr, ultimately, garnered the rights to write Williams' biography.[3]
Williams said upon his first meeting with Carr:
| “ | She had not told me what color hat or dress she’d be wearing or where she’d be seated, but despite my rather poor eyesight, I spotted her at once. Her face had a certain smile which gave it a certain charm and within a minute or two I had dismissed my reluctance to share with her my many reminiscences of Carson, for I knew at once that this lady from Georgia, Carson’s native state, was someone who valued the spirit and the writing of Mrs. McCullers as deeply as I did, and it seemed to me that the preparation of this biographical and critical work had been undertaken by Mrs. Carr much in the way that the devout once made pilgrimages to sanctified places.
I pause here, for a moment, knowing that I will certainly be accused of romantic excess. |
” |
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—Tennessee Williams' "Some Words Before," in The Loney Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers, 1974, [4] |
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In the last ten years of Paul Bowles' life, Carr formed a close, personal friendship with the reclusive, expatriate writer and composer.
She originally met him when she traveled to Morocco in 1989 to interview him for a biography on Tennessee Williams that she was drafting.
During her visit with Bowles, she asked him to sign a copy of a recently published biography on him, An Invisible Spectator, which prompted Bowles to state: ‘Does this book have anything to do with me?’ As a result of this comment and the later suggestion by Gore Vidal to postpone her work on Williams' biography and instead write one on Bowles, Carr changed gears and began creating what would become Paul Bowles: A Life.
Bowles agreed to offer Carr his no-strings-attached cooperation on the work. The payoff - after 12 years and thirteen trips to visit Bowles in Morocco, and arrangements she made for his medical treatment in Atlanta - was that Bowles revealed in person and in letters tantalizing revelations to Carr about his life and the people with whom he'd associated. It was understood from Carr that she couldn't publish any of this information until he had died.
Carr was able to read aloud to Bowles her completed work shortly before he died in 1999.
Virginia Spencer Carr was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 21, 1929, to a pioneer family of the community. From the age of 12, Carr knew she wanted to someday be a writer.[7]
Carr received her doctorate degree from Florida State University in 1969.
She was a professor of English at Columbus State University, until she accepted to chair the Department of English at Georgia State University in 1985. In 1993, she was named the John B. and Elena Diaz Verson Amos Distinguished Professor in English Letters, a position she held until her retirement in 2003.[8][10]
Virginia Spencer Carr is currently working on Radiance: A Biography of Eudora Welty, as well as finishing work on her biography of Tennessee Williams.[8]