In spite of ill health and a physical incapacity① that threatened her career， Carson Mcullers completed a novel in the summer of 1961 that made the best seller list before its official publication date by virtue of prepublication sales.
In an interview at her home， the noted novelist looked back on some of her problems and spoke without emotion of her Clock Without Hands， her first in fifteen years： “For many years I had been thinking of the novel and finally wrote it this past year.” The tall， frail novelist， forty-three years old in 1961， suffered a series of strokes② in her twenties that left her partially incapacitated， and she admits also that a mental block kept her from writing for many years after the strokes.
Mrs. Mcullers once wrote that “writing is a wandering， dreaming occupation.” But beyond the admission that she works “very hard” at her writing， she is shy about discussing her work. She is remote from literary fashions， and she has never learned to intellectualize③ her art， but she reads her critics and takes them seriously.
Clock Without Hands depicts Mrs. Mcullers’ hometown and the slow passing of the old way of life through the lives of a dying pharmacist， a white judge and former congressman， his rebellious④ grandson， and two Negroes. Among her earlier noted works are Member of the Wedding， The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter， and Ballad of a Sad Cafe.
① incapacityn. 无能，不适合伤残
② stroken. （病）突然发作，中风
③ intellectualizev. 使有理智，将……作理性研究
④ rebelliousadj. 造反的，不法的，难控制的
卡森·麦卡勒斯
尽管身体差和残疾构成了对她终身事业的威胁，卡森·麦卡勒斯仍在1961年夏天完成了一部小说。鉴于预售情况，这本书在正式出版前便被列入畅销书单。
一次在家中会见记者时，这位著名的小说家回顾了她碰到的一些难题，不露感情地谈到了她的作品《没有指针的钟》——15年来她所写的第一本书，“多年来，我一直在构思这本小说，终于在过去的一年里把它写完了”。这位身高、体弱的女作家，1961年时是43岁，在20多岁时，她曾多次中风，成了局部残废。她也承认，病患带来的脑力阻滞曾使她多年不能写作。
卡森·麦卡勒斯夫人曾这样写道：“写作是像漫游和梦幻般的职业。”但她除了承认自己“非常勤于”写作外，避而不谈自己的作品。她远远避开文学上的时髦潮流，也从未学过给自己的艺术加上智慧的花环。但是，她阅读别人评论她作品的文章，认真地对待这些意见。
《没有指针的钟》描绘了马克勒斯夫人的故乡的情况，通过一位奄奄一息的药剂师、一位白人法官和前议员，他的叛逆的孙子和两名黑人的生活状况，写出了古老的生活方式缓慢消退的过程。她早期的知名作品有《婚礼出席者》《心灵是一个孤独的猎手》及《伤心咖啡馆之歌》。