McCullers's second play, The Square Root of Wonderful, was much anticipated before it opened on Broadway in 1957. Her stage adaptation of The Member of the Wedding had been a huge success, winning the 1951 New York Drama Critics Circle Award as well as other prestigious awards. The Square Root of Wonderful, however, did not fare as well. In fact, even with a well-known cast and a prominent director, the play closed in about six weeks.

Sara Nalley, in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, joins many other critics in calling the play "a dismal failure." She also notes that The Member of the Wedding can be described as "virtually plotless, consisting of a series of vignettes in which the three characters share their memories and fantasies." Much the same criticism was leveled at The Square Root of Wonderful, a play in which most of the dialogue is devoted...