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In December 1936 Story magazine published "Wunderkind", the first fictional work by teenage author Carson Smith to appear in print. In retrospect her choice of title appears doubly ironic. In the story the term refers to the young protagonist, Frances, an aspiring pianist whose dream of a concert career collapses when she can no longer perform with her usual precision and passion. "Wunderkind" may also be read as a fictionalized treatment of Carson Smith's own abandoned musical ambition and as a prophetic comment on her destiny as the internationally acclaimed author Carson McCullers.
The firstborn child in her family, Lula Carson Smith was lavished with love but also burdened by maternal expectations of genius. As a girl she--like Frances--trained to be a concert pianist, but her delicate health and the departure of her piano teacher helped to turn her toward a writing career instead.
With her second publication, the commercially and critically successful novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), McCullers--then twenty-three--was touted as a literary wunderkind.
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