Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,, 1964. Inscribed to her spiritual brother and closest confidant First edition, first printing, a preeminent presentation copy inscribed by the author on the title page, "For my beloved Boots, always [xxxxx]", with a drawing of an arrow-pierced heart. "Boots" was McCullers's petname for her cousin, Jordan Massee. Her biographer Virginia Carr states that theirs was "perhaps the longest and most constant and loyal relationship" of McCullers's entire life. We can trace no other signed or inscribed copies of this title to have appeared in commerce. Despite both growing up in Georgia, McCullers and Massee weren't properly acquainted until 1941, when they were both living in New York. McCullers met Massee by chance, through mutual friends. "'She was very quiet then', he recalled. 'She played the piano for me, and I remember that when her housemates came in she introduced me, saying 'This is my precious cousin'" (ibid., p. 164). Over the next few years Massee became McCullers's closest confidant, holding a unique position in her affections and dependencies. She told him everything, from her need for women's love and companionship to the tortuous details of her marriage to Reeves. They were two sides of the same coin, and understood each other perfectly, differing only on what Massee called "Carson's struggle to survive and my tendency to self-sacrifice" (cited ibid. p. 329). As McCullers's physical health deteriorated, so did her dependency on his presence, and even the acquiescent Massee admitted that "Carson was a demanding companion" (cited ibid. p. 325). "No one in her entire experience - not Marguerite or Mary Tucker or Reeves or Annemarie Clarac-Schwarzenbach or Edwin Peacock or David Diamond or Tennesee Williams - approached the relationship that was uniquely theirs until Mary Mercer [Carson's doctor in her final years] came into her life" (ibid, p. 322). The high point of their relationship was the spring of 1949, when Masse invited Carson to stay at his at his home, The House of the Salutation. "It was here that Carson and Masse came together as brother and sister in spirit, cementing the bond that remained unbroken for the remaining 18 years of Carson's life" (ibid.). Sweet as a Pickle was published three years before McCullers's death. Her ailments made it difficult to sustain long periods of writing, and this title was comprised of short verses she wrote for the children of her lawyer, Floria Lasky. It was published on 10 May 1964. In November McCullers wrote her will, which included Massee to the tune of $1,000. She later removed him during a brief rift over mistaken loyalty, and despite their quick reconciliation, inadvertently failed to reinstate him. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in green, pictorial design on front cover in green, green endpapers. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom brown morocco-backed cloth box. Illustrations on title page and throughout in black, green, and orange. Slight rubbing, mark on top edge; spine panel toned, mark on front panel, short closed tear at head of front fold, a few nicks: a fine copy in near-fine jacket. Virginia Spencer Carr, The Lonely Hunter: a Biography of Carson McCullers, 1976.