A more direct inspiration came from a chance remark which her husband Reeves (an ex-soldier) made to her about a voyeur who had been arrested at Fort Bragg; a young soldier had been caught peeping inside the married officers' quarters.

Leonora's current lover, Major Morris Langdon, lives with his depressed wife Alison and her flamboyant houseboy Anacleto, near the Pendertons.

After its publication in 1941, the novel caused some consternation in Columbus, Georgia and at Fort Benning, where people speculated about the source of McCullers' tale.

[2] According to author Michael Bronski, McCullers tackled the topics of "homosexuality, sadism, voyeurism, and fetishism while exploring the boundaries of eroticism, outsider status and the fragility of normal in the novel.

"[3] Anthony Slide, another 21st-century scholar, considers Reflections in a Golden Eye to be one of only four well-known gay novels in the English language in the first half of the 20th century.