Swith Myth: or, What Even Did Happen Between Carson McCullers and Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Anyway?
When you think of Carson’s life as characterized by unrequited love, and Annemarie’s life as characterized by a surplus of requition, it seems logical that they should have met—to, I think, their mutual frustration. The resulting semi-romance is a very long, slightly Gothic story (but if you want the two-second version, there’s always the ‘Community’ gif of Jeff turning around and the Dean falling to the floor, twitching and gurgling.)
Following the success of her first novel, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” Carson McCullers traveled to New York, where she soon became acquainted with Erika Mann and, via Erika, with Annemarie. Later, in her unfinished autobiography, Carson remembered the meeting this way:
“She had a face that I knew would haunt me to the end of my life, beautiful, blonde, with straight short hair. There was a look of suffering on her face that I could not define. As she was bodily resplendent, I could only think of Myshkin’s meeting with Nastasya Filippovna in the “Idiot”, in which he experienced “terror, pity and love.” She was introduced by Erika as Madame Clarac. She was dressed in the height of simple summer fashion, that even I could recognize as a creation of one of the great Paris couturiers. I did not know that a dear friend of hers picked out all of her clothes, as Annemarie wouldn’t have cared or noticed. She asked me to call her Annemarie right away, and we became friends immediately.”
The next day, Annemarie took Carson out for lunch—Carson ordered milk and buttered toast; Annemarie sipped coffee and regaled her with stories from Egypt; from Turkey; from Syria; from Afghanistan. For Carson, who had never even left the U.S., these stories amounted to something of a revelation. The two stayed out so late that, when Carson went back to the tiny apartment she was sharing with her husband, he furiously demanded to know what she had been doing.
‘Are you in love with Mademoiselle Schwarzenbach?’
Quick and powerful as a panther Reeves slapped me on the face, and when I was trying to struggle up, he slapped me again. It was the first time I had ever been slapped in my life, and I was too surprised to speak.”
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