Virginia Spencer Carr has received international recognition as a biographer of Carson McCullers and John Dos Passos. Scholars and lay readers alike agree that her work sets a high standard for biographical writing, and it is a tribute to Carr's versatility that she has successfully written the stories of two important literary figures of the twentieth century whose lives, temperaments, convictions, techniques, and themes are quite different. McCullers led a restricted life because of ill health, had limited formal education, little worldly experience, and was an intuitive writer. Dos Passos was a highly educated world traveler, a rugged individualist who was at home everywhere. McCullers remained provincial, temperamental, self-indulgent, and heavily dependent on her mother, husband, and friends for her emotional and physical nurturing. Moreover, she was afflicted throughout her life with a painful sense of loneliness and isolation. Dos Passos was a devoted husband and father, a...