"Carson McCullers’ 1946 novel “The Member of the Wedding” is a haunting description of childhood loneliness. I knew the story first as a play and then as a heartbreaking movie with Julie Harris playing Frankie, a motherless 12-year-old, and Ethel Waters as Bernice, Frankie’s African-American caretaker.Frankie is desperate to find “a we of me.”
Like many modern kids, Frankie’s loneliness is endemic to her life. The older neighborhood girls have not invited her into their new club, but Frankie’s loneliness is not just a bout of friendlessness such as happens to any of us, when we’re the new kid in town or the one who’s outgrown the old gang."