["The Member of the Wedding"] is Carson McCullers's third book; and we have now, I should think, sufficient evidence for remarking that, while there are quite a few writers who unfortunately resemble her, she fortunately resembles nobody else. She is unique….

["The Member of the Wedding"] is not just a study of adolescence. Frankie Addams, it is true, conforms to a possible pattern of behavior. She does nothing which a twelve-year-old girl might not do. Yet the further you read into "The Member of the Wedding" the more you realize, it seems to me, that Frankie is merely the projection of a problem that has nothing much to do with adolescence.

The three chief characters are Frankie herself, her [cousin] John Henry, and the [cook] Berenice…. Their problem is elementary, unanswerable, and common to all age levels….

In other words, the problem which obsesses them is human loneliness...