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The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers

387 · rating details · 23519 ratings · 2086 reviews

With the publication of her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, and an enduring masterpiece.

At its center is the deaf-mute John Sing...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published September 8th 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published 1940)

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Dec 03, 2008

Paul rated it

Shelves: novels

It turns out that Miss McCullers did most of her great writing - most of her entire writing - before she was 30. Rock and roll! After 30 she was too busy having ghastly illnesses and marrying the same guy three or four times, and dodging invitations to a suicide pact from the guy she married all those times. So when she was 22 - I ask you! - she wrote this first novel which is a stone American classic. I had heretofore thought that absorbing a ton of influences and developing a unique voice all ...moreIt turns out that Miss McCullers did most of her great writing - most of her entire writing - before she was 30. Rock and roll! After 30 she was too busy having ghastly illnesses and marrying the same guy three or four times, and dodging invitations to a suicide pact from the guy she married all those times. So when she was 22 - I ask you! - she wrote this first novel which is a stone American classic. I had heretofore thought that absorbing a ton of influences and developing a unique voice all by the age of 22 had only been done by Lennon/McCartney, Bob Dylan and Aubrey Beardsley, but Miss McCullers performs this remarkable feat too. Her surefootedness and precision are fantastic. I'm so much in awe that I feel sick to my stomach.
Onto the book itself. The inexorable gravitational pull of the metaphor in all our verbal dealings is something I have mentioned before, so that even someone like Raymond Carver's ironed-flat tell-it-like-it-is bargain-basement prose still spins in stories like So Much Water So Close to Home or A Small Good Thing brilliant metaphorical explorations of the various uncomfortable truths he shoves our way (the ignored corpse, the tasteless birthday cake). Perhaps we no longer love overly obvious metaphors (Little Red Riding Hood) - then again, perhaps we do (The Titanic). But they're very useful when you try to talk about God - in fact it's impossible to talk about God non-metaphorically insofar as God is Himself a metaphor. Fictionmakers love God metaphors - last year we had Ron Currie's disappointing "God is Dead", a few years back we had the smart Jim Carey movie "The Truman Show", further back we have other movies like "Whistle Down the Wind" and "Theorem". In "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" John Singer, the deaf mute, the blank slate, the man who everyone talks to but who talks to nobody, stands for God. People pour out their dreams, fears & hopes onto him and he scribbles the odd bland sentence in reply and they think he understands all and knows all. In fact - and here's Miss McCullers' audacious vicious twist - John Singer is himself completely obsessed with another deaf mute who he thinks of as almost Godlike but who in fact is a fat greedy imbecile confined to a mental asylum. If we follow the metaphor along, not too fancifully I think, we find that Antonapoulos the idiot therefore represents the human race, with which God/Singer is fatally, poignantly, uselessly obsessed - Antonapoulos will never get well and was a sad mistake to begin with - so what does that say about the rest of us chickens? Not much.
Miss McCullers doesn't belabour this central conceit too much and she also throws in a ton of local knowledge but without smacking you upside the head every time like Annie Proulx does. And although this is a slow old read at times, a lot of doing nothing punctuated by brief acts of appalling violence (is this what the American South is like?), her sad sweet song of humanity is as beautiful a tune as I've heard all year.(less)

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Jun 26, 2008

Trevor rated it

Shelves: literature

I knew nothing about this book at all. Well, except for the title, I’d definitely heard the title before – but I would have bet money the book was written by a man and that it was bad romance novel, at least, that would have been my best guess. Instead, this is now perhaps one of my all-time favourite American novels. It can be compared without the least blush of embarrassment with Steinbeck at his best and Harper Lee out killing mocking birds – and there are many, many points of comparison b...more

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Jul 10, 2009

Logan rated it

Recommends it for: Anyone looking for a darker To Kill A Mockingbird

Recommended to Logan by: Charity

Shelves: classics, fiction, i_am_in_love, the_south_will_rise_again

I find myself consistantly tongue-tied about this book. I've begun nearly four different reviews of this eminantly enjoyable read that have all petered away into nothingness as I try to put into words just what it was that gripped me about McCullers' opus. The first word I can think of is shock. Shock that I had heard next to nothing about this book until pulling it from my shelf. Shock that I have gone so long without it being assigned to me in a class or forced into my hands by a friend. ...moreI find myself consistantly tongue-tied about this book. I've begun nearly four different reviews of this eminantly enjoyable read that have all petered away into nothingness as I try to put into words just what it was that gripped me about McCullers' opus. The first word I can think of is shock. Shock that I had heard next to nothing about this book until pulling it from my shelf. Shock that I have gone so long without it being assigned to me in a class or forced into my hands by a friend. Shock that this book is not featured on more of those "must-read" or "best writing of the 20th century" lists that get bandied about with the regularity of summer monsoons here on Goodreads. Mostly, though, shock that McCullers turned out such an exquisite and world-weary look at the loneliness that engulfs people and swallows them down when she was only 23. Things like that just make me feel lazy and unaccomplished.

I am the first to admit that I have very little firsthand knowledge of the Southern United States. What I do know is informed through the media I consume and the history we were all taught in school (though, apparently, that history is subjective as well; see "The War of Northern Aggression"). In fact, I could honestly claim that I know more about other continents than I do about the South. As such, I don't feel too comfortable claiming that there is a darkness that seems to live in the land, seeping out to inspire random acts of cruelty or violence and spread waves of intangible dread among its inhabitants (notice that it didn't actually stop me from making said claim). Whether or not this darkness is inherent to the South or McCullers is just tapping into her own personal ennui, reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter often made me feel as though I were journeying upriver to listen to Kurtz exhort me to "exterminate all the brutes."

The book follows four different people and the dreams for a different/better life that they all hold close as a means of escaping the pervasive loneliness which always seems ready to swallow them whole. For Mick Kelly, a precocious young teen cut in the mold of To Kill A Mockingbird's Scout Finch, this dream is of being able to compose and play the music that infects her mind. For the wandering Jake Blount it is of inspiring the downtrodden workers to strike at the mills to improve their conditions. Cafe owner Biff Brannon is ashamed of his creative impulses and the maternal feelings he carries for the children of his patrons and Dr. Copeland is so consumed by his desire to inspire his fellow blacks to greatness that he refuses to take time off to treat the tuberculosis which is slowly killing him.

The lynchpin of all these dreamers is the enigmatic Mr. Singer. A deaf-mute in a city of speakers, Mr. Singer offers himself up as the perfect tabula rasa for the four dreamers. In the small room that he rents from Mick's parents, he sits as calm and quiet as the Buddha as each in their turn visit and pour out their dreams, desires and passions to him- the perfect opinionless tabula rasa. My heart ached for all of these characters as they struggled with realising their dreams and the compromises they all made as they ran into the hard wall of reality. Yet it was Mr. Singer that I cared for above all. Always receptive of others yet unable to share his own thoughts, his only confessor his former roommate who is now interred at an asylum. He is wrapped in a bubble of isolation and it is his loneliness that has stuck with me the hardest since finishing the book.

It's been five days since I finished this book yet I can't bring myself to put it back on my shelf, to really believe that my time with these achingly real people has come to an end. My copy is dog-eared now from me folding down the corners of pages to record a choice description or bit of dialogue and I keep referring back to it in order to make sure that I am not bastardizing McCullers' exquisite prose. It may not have been listed on the 1001 List (but 12 different Ian McEwan novels made the cut?!?) but this is absolutely a book that you must read before you die. Its beauty and its sorrow can't help but touch you.(less)

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May 19, 2011

K.D. rated it

Recommended to K.D. by: Time 100; Modern Library 100; Oprah Book of the Month; E.G.

Shelves: 501, time-100, saddest

A credible friend here in GR told me that this novel is the saddest he had ever read. That’s the main reason why I read this. Well, it is the saddest and most depressing among the fiction ones that I’ve read too. Saddest among the ones I found earlier to be downright depressing: Good Morning, Midnight (1939) by Jean Rhys and The God of Small Things (1997) by Arundhati Roy. Well, I am still to read The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Also, the holocaust-base...more

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Aug 16, 2007

Jamie rated it

Recommends it for: EVERYONE IN THE WORLD

Arg. This book is amazing. I could never write this book. Apparently it's heavily autobiographical and the character Mick is based off of McCullers own childhood. She wrote this book when she was twenty-three (not to be self-oriented, but I'm twenty-five). She was very interested in music and studied to be a concert pianist, which is why she composed The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in three parts, like a fuge or something piano-oriented (I forget because I'm not a pianist, either.)
Some h...more

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Sep 29, 2007

Meika rated it

I picked this book up in an effort to better my mind - not a good reason at all. I remembered that it was heavily referenced in the movie, Love Song for Bobby Long, which I loved because it's gritty and heartbreaking and all that is hopeful about it is hinged on the tenuous beauty of Purslane, a girl who is at the brink of giving in to a lost life. I wanted to know the story that Purslane found so captivating.
True that the story centers on John Singer, who loses his companion and soulmat...moreI picked this book up in an effort to better my mind - not a good reason at all. I remembered that it was heavily referenced in the movie, Love Song for Bobby Long, which I loved because it's gritty and heartbreaking and all that is hopeful about it is hinged on the tenuous beauty of Purslane, a girl who is at the brink of giving in to a lost life. I wanted to know the story that Purslane found so captivating.
True that the story centers on John Singer, who loses his companion and soulmate to mental illness and then becomes the deaf-mute sounding board for the deepest passions of four other central characters, Mick, Dr. Copeland, Jake Blount, and Biff Brannon. But the story is about the unfolding of human experience, and it is devastating, powerful and tumultuous - it sinks you into the story on a visceral level. You feel Jake Blount's drunken rages about the evils of capitalism, Mick Kelly's blind optimism at becoming the world's premier concert pianist, and in the end, her heartbreaking hopelessness at realizing she will work at Woolworth's at the cost of those hopes. Biff Brannon's strange introspection casts the other characters in stagelighting, and you can practically smell the Aqua Florida that he dabs behind his ears to remind him that memory has its own life.
What McCullers does is present each experience so that the characters fade into their experiences. So, instead of reading that Jake Blount raged, you read that Jake Blount felt the room begin to spin, and the heat became stifling and the vein on his temple began to pulse... so suddenly you find yourself present. Present in the deep south in the depression, with dirt under your nails and cheap gin in your veins. It's uncomfortable and dangerous, not even your own couch cup of coffee and lamp can save you from the story. The only reprieve granted to the reader is the silence of John Singer, his sanity and impeccable calm. And in the end, that is shattered when he learns that his companion has died. In the end the characters must face themselves.
I suspect this is the connection that The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has with Love Song for Bobby Long. Love Song forces the lonely hearts into proximity with each other. They have no John Singer, only each other.
I am still puzzled by what the suitcase means. In Love Song, there is a suitcase full of books left to Purslane by her mother. In Heart, Jake Blount enters with a suitcase and leaves with it, and John Singer stuffs a suitcase full of towels and soap and various things from his hotel room before killing himself... it might be nothing, but the object stands out the way objects in dreams stand out - like it's subconsciously significant....
I'll be processing this story for a long time. (less)

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Jul 23, 2007

Alexis rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: moreimportantthanfood

this book should be required reading for every American. I have no idea how I made it thru the school system never hearing of this book - that is an educational crime. The jacket's got a quote saying it's a book about the "ultimate inconsolability and incurability of the human soul," but I think it's about our country as well. And how, for all it's fancy ideas, it doesn't want to be better. It likes itself just how it is: broken, isolated, mad, faithlessly awaiting its salvation wit...morethis book should be required reading for every American. I have no idea how I made it thru the school system never hearing of this book - that is an educational crime. The jacket's got a quote saying it's a book about the "ultimate inconsolability and incurability of the human soul," but I think it's about our country as well. And how, for all it's fancy ideas, it doesn't want to be better. It likes itself just how it is: broken, isolated, mad, faithlessly awaiting its salvation without the courage to actually save itself.

Quotes:
"And the way he gravitated around the deaf-mute and picked him out and tried to make him a free present of everything in him./ Why?/ Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons - throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to."
"Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen."
"Even on the coldest nights the Sunny Dixie Show was open. The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander into the darkness beyond tomorrow."
"He had walked in the neighborhood where he might see Mick. And there was something about it that was - not quite right. Yes. Wrong. ...Always he wanted to set her up to something, to give to her. And not only a sundae or some sweet to eat - but something real. That was all he wanted for himself - to give to her. Biff's mouth hardened. He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt. Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreckoned and without a name."
** "He waited for the black, terrible anger as though for some beast out of the night. But it did not come to him. His bowels seemed weighted with lead, and he walked slowly and lingered against fences and the cold, wet walls of buildings by the way. Descent into the depths until at last there was no further chasm below. He touched the solid bottom of despair and there took ease. In this he knew a certain strong and holy gladness."
[anyone who knows me will get a big kick out of this one. so...i guess i didn't invent this theory:] "Harry believed that after you were dead and buried you changed to plants and fire and dirt and clouds and water. It took thousands of years and then finally you were a part of all the world. He said he thought that was better than being one single angel. Anyhow it was better than nothing."
[proof - day jobs kill artists:] "But now no music was in her mind. That was a funny thing. It was like she was shut out from tthe inside room. Sometimes a quick little tune would come and go - but she never went into the inside room with music like she used to do. It was like she was too tense. Or maybe because it was like the store took all her energy and time. Woolworth's wasn't the same as school. When she used to come home from school she felt good and was ready to start working on music. But now whe was always too tired."
"...For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who - one word - love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Between the two worlds he was suspended. He saw that he was looking at his own face in the counter glass before him. Sweat glistened on his temples and his face was contorted. One eye was opened wider than the other. The left eye delved narrowly into the past while the right gazed wide and affrighted into the future of blackness, error, and ruin. And he was suspended between radiance and darkness. Between bitter irony and faith. Sharply he turned away."(less)

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Dec 04, 2007

Darcy rated it

Shelves: twentieth-century-novels

If this were a Debbie Macomber novel, a group of misfits would coalesce around a single galvanizing figure, resulting in a community of like-minded souls who would then knit their way to happiness and inner peace.

This isn't. Yes, there are misfits. Yes, there is a single galvanizing figure. No, there isn't knitting. And <spoiler alert> there won't be much inner peace, either.

This is a very quiet book. There aren't any surprises in this narrative, but oddly that isn'...moreIf this were a Debbie Macomber novel, a group of misfits would coalesce around a single galvanizing figure, resulting in a community of like-minded souls who would then knit their way to happiness and inner peace.

This isn't. Yes, there are misfits. Yes, there is a single galvanizing figure. No, there isn't knitting. And <spoiler alert> there won't be much inner peace, either.

This is a very quiet book. There aren't any surprises in this narrative, but oddly that isn't a drawback to it. The characters are set up neatly at the beginning, a few plot elements are put into motion, and then the story proceeds to draw the characters more and more closely together, so that they can't seem to escape from one another. It would seem as though that would be a good thing--this a novel in which the characters are full of potential to reach out to one another, and yet they never manage to do it with any success. McCullers presents a very bleak view of social interaction and community, in which Mick Kelly, Jake Blount, Biff Brannon, and Dr. Benedict Copeland all repeatedly grasp at the central figure of John Singer--a deaf-mute who although able to communicate, presents them with a sort of "blank slate" listener; he always appears to be interested in what they are saying (thus making himself indispensable), and yet his personal letters reveal he understands very little of their concerns or desires.

This would seem to be a novel about the problems of communication--these characters are all talkers, but not listeners. Ironically, the man who does listen--John Singer--doesn't want to understand what is being said, despite his own intense loneliness and longing for human contact. John Singer's deafness, McCullers suggests, doesn't give him any keener insight into the desire to be heard than any of the other characters. Instead, the book presents an infinite retrograde of uncaring listeners. John Singer listens, but does not comprehend, what anyone else says. He himself speaks only to an old friend, Atanapolous, who has been institutionalized due to mental incapacity. Atanapolous understands and cares even less than Singer about what is said to him. With his swollen girth and his intense desire to consume food and drink, Atanapolous is the exaggerated, physical manifestation of the type of person who walks, talks, and thinks only of himself--he is a grotesque caricature of Mick, Jake, and Dr. Copeland.

Of all the characters it seems to be Biff Brannon, more than anyone else, who sees the potential in others to build a community. The book is clearly concerned with this issue; both Jake Blount and Dr. Copeland struggle with the frustration of not being heard. They subscribe to the idealism of Karl Marx, and yet repeatedly find themselves ignored, swept aside, or merely tolerated. But the novel seems to suggest that it is this very desire to speak and be heard that is holding these characters back. In focusing so much on what they have to say, Jake and Dr. Copeland fail to understand others. It is Biff who watches other people carefully, noticing their desires in an attempt to ignore his own. In the end, however, his observations are all to no avail--he does not act on what he observes and so he ends up merely collecting his own thoughts and secreting them away, much as he does the daily newspaper.

This is an incredibly prescient novel, in many ways, particularly in terms of its treatment of racial tension, and the various pressures of stereotyped gender roles. The narrative is extremely adept at weaving together the various frustrations individuals face, even as it ironically points to the similarities in those frustrations. This is not an optimistic novel, but at the very least it points to the potential for hope, a potential located in the almost overwhelming and consuming desire for change.(less)

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Jun 15, 2011

Duffy Pratt rated it

Shelves: classic

I may come back and give this four stars, but for now I can't.

I first started this book maybe two years ago. I got about 100 pages into it and stopped. I didn't stop because I disliked it. Rather, it seemed at the time a natural result from the inertia and momentum of the book itself. Basically, I wasn't quite sure whether I had stopped or whether the book itself had simply stopped and I was just going along with it.

I picked it up again because I've always had a nagg...moreI may come back and give this four stars, but for now I can't.

I first started this book maybe two years ago. I got about 100 pages into it and stopped. I didn't stop because I disliked it. Rather, it seemed at the time a natural result from the inertia and momentum of the book itself. Basically, I wasn't quite sure whether I had stopped or whether the book itself had simply stopped and I was just going along with it.

I picked it up again because I've always had a nagging feeling about it, and because I hate leaving anything unfinished. And besides, the writing is very good, and there is quite a bit of promise in the book. Of course, all the promise turns out to be false, and that's pretty much the point. (Actually, I guess the point is not so much that the promise is false, but that it gets shut away.)

The book is almost unrelentingly bleak. The main characters are all on the edge of despair. There isn't much chance of any of it getting turned around. And, since a happy resolution is not in the cards, most novels would push the characters over the edge in some sort of cataclysm. McCullers doesn't opt for that sort of showiness. Instead, she just further seals off each of her main characters from any possibility of genuine human contact. This resolution is even sadder, but for me it makes for a less compelling novel.

I've read reviews of people complaining that nothing happens in this book. That's not true. There are lots of great incidents: a riot, a young girl accidently shot in the head, a prisoner losing both of his feet to gangrene after being put in the hole during a freeze, etc... But there's no plot. It never feels like any of the incidents drive anywhere else. And the wants of the characters don't lead to any of the incidents. It's almost like there is a complete disconnect.

Similarly, because the characters are so unable to communicate with each other, there is also no possibility for drama. The characters kind of bounce off of each other from time to time, but they never actually interact. And again, I think all of this is exactly according to plan. But, for me at least, this plan doesn't make for an enjoyable work.

And the bleak view of the world does not do much for me now. If I had read this book in my twenties, when i felt much more in tune with alienation for its own sake, I probably would have loved this book. Even now, I might want to switch my review to four stars because I can see that this is very well done for what it is. But it's no longer for me. I read somewhere a long ago that tragedy was for adolescents, and that comedy was for grown-ups. I hate to think of myself as a grown-up, but over time I do seem to have lost some of my taste for this kind of despair. (less)

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Jul 16, 2007

Ed rated it

· review of another edition

This will spoil it, so only read on if you've read it. In summary, it's a good book, though not among the top books I've ever read.

Well written novel set in the south weaving together the stories of several quite different main characters. At its core, this novel focuses on the need of each of its main characters to find solace in others by pouring out their hearts. Each character views Singer as a confidant who comes to represent the living embodiment of their "inside rooms"...moreThis will spoil it, so only read on if you've read it. In summary, it's a good book, though not among the top books I've ever read.

Well written novel set in the south weaving together the stories of several quite different main characters. At its core, this novel focuses on the need of each of its main characters to find solace in others by pouring out their hearts. Each character views Singer as a confidant who comes to represent the living embodiment of their "inside rooms", their inner life that they can tell to noone else, but that they need to express. Meanwhile, Singer has an identical relationship with his former roommate. Each character seeks to make their confidant an extension of themself, while not seeking to give anything to that person. At the end of the novel, Singer is unable to deal with the loss of his "confidant" and leaves each character with a hole. Like Singer, the characters are unable to move on, and either wander without direction, or sacrafice the inner dialogue that he provided. The comparison of Singer's needs to those of the other characters is one of the most compelling aspects of the book.
Mick emerges as the most compelling character in the novel. She's precocious, but somewhat out of place in her environment. Her coming of age tale resonates - she's excited about the world, dynamic, and free - but ultimately is forced to give most of it up for the rest of the world. Her story is unique, but it parallels the journey of so many of us into the real world post college. It's remarkable that McCullers could write this at 23, and pick up on so much that is true about growing.
Brannon represents a similarly fascinating character. Unlike all the others, his dialogue starts and ends the novel as an internal dialogue within himself, without an effort to pour it onto someone else. He's an observer of people, and he's the only character who tries to figure out the truth about Singer. Similarly, he's the character who handles his death, and makes the arrangements that must be made. Despite the caring he shows for other characters, he's also portrayed as unable to establish real relationships - his relationship with his wife is deeply loving in his mind, but was not in real life. In later parts of the novel, I couldn't help but wonder if George was set up to become another Brannon. (less)

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Jun 21, 2007

Unbridled rated it

I almost fell in love with the sad, mopey faced woman who delivered Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Not so here, there is no compressed time to breeze to an impetuous decision. This is, however, a brilliant novel, quite unexpected from the pen of a 22 year old writer. That in itself is astounding! 22! At times I felt the novel was too long, maybe 50 pages or so, but upon reflection I cannot conceive of what to remove, because the whole of the novel plays as a rich, heavy symphony – though I might not li...more

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Oct 14, 2008

Tyler rated it

Shelves: 2008, read-while-in-hungary

This is an odd little book. For such an established classic, it doesn't seem to have much in the way of grand pronouncements about humanity, technical innovations, an unusually eloquent voice, or even a particularly interesting plot. I was reminded of John Steinbeck, not just because both him and Mrs. McCullers are both middlebrow mid-century American writers who chronicle the common people with an earnestness that sometimes descends into hand-wringing, but also just because of the sound of her ...more

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Jul 09, 2007

Gwen rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: people really into Southern lit

I managed to finish the book, but I can't really say I got anything much out of it. It's the story of a deaf/mute man living in the South and the people that come to be part of his life. Because he is deaf and mute, they all impose their own ideas onto him, making him into what they need to believe he is. His story, and the story of a teenage girl slowly discovering she's no longer a kid, is interesting, but at the end of the book I couldn't quite tell you what the overall point was. Maybe t...more

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Jul 13, 2007

David rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: top-20

This book made me weep when I first read it as a teenager. The sadness of the characters was so overwhelming. But I loved the writing, and the book stayed with me. When I read it again a few years ago, it still packed an emotional punch. And somehow, for all the sadness in the book, I don't find it in the least bit depressing. Maybe it's the ability of McCullers's writing to remind the reader of the redemptive power of storytelling.

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Jan 30, 2011

Dominic rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: modern-literature

[DEFINITELY holds up to multiple readings. So haunting and unsettling in the best possible way.:]

Have you ever seen that Edward Hopper painting, "Nighthawks," the one with the corner diner and a couple of lonely looking people? I couldn't help but think about "Nighthawks" while I was reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

This is a sometimes tender and sometimes startling book about five people desperate for escape and longing for more out of life. McCu...more

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Jan 06, 2012

Mike rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Every one should read this book

Recommended to Mike by: O.B. Emerson, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, The University of Alabama

Shelves: favorites, coming-of-age, southern-literature, debut-novels, 20th-century, modern-library-s-100

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCuller's Portrait of the Faces Behind the Masks

Thanks to a good friend, Jeff Keeten, now residing with Dorothy and Toto,too, in Kansas, I've learned I am only gently mad. It was a relief to discover that. Because my self-analysis has been that I'm excessively obsessive when it comes to the love of books. After having taken his recommendation to read A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes ...more

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Jan 23, 2008

Matt rated it

Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Matt by: Tim, Leslie

Shelves: classics

I just finished this and maybe I should wait awhile to write my review of it, because this writing does make you reflect and think over a multitude of ideas.
Basically, the setting is in a town in Georgia of about twenty thousand people. It takes about five characters and with a third person perspective tells what there going through over a coarse of a year. What ties them together is a mute that the other four characters are drawn to, and think they have a real bond with him. The first cha...moreI just finished this and maybe I should wait awhile to write my review of it, because this writing does make you reflect and think over a multitude of ideas.
Basically, the setting is in a town in Georgia of about twenty thousand people. It takes about five characters and with a third person perspective tells what there going through over a coarse of a year. What ties them together is a mute that the other four characters are drawn to, and think they have a real bond with him. The first chapter focuses on the mute and his mute companion who he adored but treated him unwell and that mute gets sent of to a asylum? Anyway the mute left moves to a boarding house where he meets the young character, Mick. Mick's story is very much a coming of age tail, and she's fond of the new boarder. Through a diner, the characters Jake, a communist drunk, and Biff a the owner of the diner get introduced. Finally a black docter in town, Copeland, who wants equality for his people gets introduced. All of these characters want more out of life and have many questions on their mind. The mute listens to them and eases their pain. They end up visiting him frequently and look forward to that time. All the while the mute yearns for his lost mute friend in the asylum. When the characters mix with the others tensions build and they all want the mute to themselves.
This book is poignant because it takes on poverty in the south during the depression and race inequality and seems very true to describing the human condition. Reading it today makes you think quite a bit. There is Karl Marx theme in this book propelled by two characters in this. Reading 'Native Son' a couple of years ago that has a communist them too. With these two texts you must think to yourself, that ideology was really being circualted during the depression, when everything was bad. This makes me want to research the era that lead up to the McCarthyism and maybe even read the 'Communist Manifesto' myself. Also, this book and the poverty element made me think of 'Grapes of Wrath' too. Whoever says that this country has not improved since that time must be senial.
Anyway, agian this book makes you think, and I recommend that everyone reads this. I'm also thinking in the next year I'm going to try to read more social novels. Some of my favorite novels have a social impact like 'The Jungle' by Sinclair.
If anyone has suggestions let me know.
-Matt (less)

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Nov 01, 2007

Veronica Aranda rated it

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I guess my main problem is, every time I read a book I pretty much decide it's the best book I've ever read. Maybe I've just avoided reading any real stinkers, or maybe I just have horrible taste, but THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER was no exception. The characters were rich beyond belief, and given the setting I found them especially fascinating. The complexity of McCullers's prose does not get in the way of enjoyability or understandability in the least, but manages to portray vividly a wide arra...more

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Jun 17, 2007

Syd rated it

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Shelves: classic, cultural, movie, favorite, fiction, reviewed

Favorite excerpts from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

The first excerpt is Portia, housekeeper at the Kelly house and a sort of mother substitute for the children of the house, speaking to Mick Kelly, a girl in her early teens:

This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you have to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat he...more

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Nov 30, 2007

Luke rated it

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Shelves: fiction

A devastatingly sad, beautiful book that left me speechless. Between McCullers' spare, punch-in-the-gut prose style and (though she wrote this at the age of 23) the loving yet utterly unsentimental way she breathes life into her characters, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter seems to me to be pretty close to a flawless novel--unless you're the type of reader who's disappointed if you don't get a happy ending. Sissy stuff, I say.

I would like to hold a dinner party and invite McCullers, Faul...more

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Jan 23, 2012

Jinny Chung rated it

Shelves: love-love-love

"She lay on her stomach on the cold floor and thought. Later on -- when she was twenty -- she would be a great world-famous composer. She would have a whole symphony orchestra and conduct all of her music herself. She would stand up on the platform in front of the big crowds of people. To conduct the orchestra she would wear either a real man's evening suit or else a red dress spangled with rhinestones. The curtains of the stage would be red velvet and M.K. would be printed on them in gold....more

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Apr 18, 2009

Mike rated it

This book reminds me so much of my favorite book, "A Fine Balance". Not that there's a speck of plagiarism, but they both tackle what I guess is my favorite subject, what Mistry would call, "The fine balance between hope and despair." Or I would say, "How can human beings be so fragile yet so strong at the same time?" How can we find so much love and beauty in the midst of humiliation and oppression?

According to the preface to the audio book, Carson McCull...more

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Dec 27, 2011

Karima rated it

Recommends it for: Everyone!

Talk about character development!!!! I think this is my third time through this gem, this time on audio, impeccably read by Cherry Jones. This is a book that should be on everyone's "must read" list. Set in the late thirties in a small southern town (state of Georgia?) it is rife with all the hot topics of the time: racism, communism, fascism and poverty. There are five main characters: Mick Kelly, Mr. Singer, Dr. Copeland, Biff Brannon and Jake Blount, and as many strong supporting o...more

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Jun 24, 2011

Maggy rated it

Shelves: charactersiwanttohavelunchwith

Mick cried so hard that she choked herself and her father had to beat her on the back

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter paints an unforgettable picture of a small town community in the Deep South. At the center of its troubled inhabitants is the lonely death mute John Singer to whom they tell their troubles. Despite his silence they each feel like he is the only one that understands them.

The imagery in this book will stick in my mind for a long time, McCullers was a genius, th...more

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Jan 04, 2009

Nora rated it

The author definitely has a talent for writing, in particular conveying characters' thoughts, feelings, mood, etc. She does an exceptional job at this and draws you in while sustaining the very real feel to her characters. I especially enjoyed the character Mick, because she is so real (that could have been me at 12). Or maybe because she was the only one with a glimmer of hope in the book. She is miserable but still young and maybe can make it out of her circumstances. Andthis is where I a...more

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Jan 10, 2010

Sally rated it

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Shelves: library-book, fast-read

I wish I could give it 4.5 stars. It is good, beautiful, heartbreaking at times. But what the eff? Why is this required/recommended reading at the middle school level? It is so sad, meandering, without any real point other than the utter tragedy of many types of lives.
The fact that it was written by a twenty-three year old in 1940 adds some intrigue, but not enough.
It just doesn't have that ooomph that makes me want to start again from the beginning - the mark of a five starred...more

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Dec 08, 2011

Nancy St. Clair rated it

Recommended to Nancy St. Clair by: Kara Bright

Shelves: book-club-selection, fiction

Although this book would most likely never be classified as a typical mystery/suspense book, I think that it has both mysterious and suspenseful elements in it. Well, at least for me it did! While reading I often pondered about the outcome of the characters and continually felt that "something big" was about to happen, and yet I had no idea what the dark and sinister twist would be or to whom it would happen. This would make the story suspenseful, right? Also there was something w...more

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Jan 27, 2012

Sally Rosalina rated it

Buku ini saya beli sekitar tahun 2009, saya berulang kali berusaha membacanya, tetapi hanya bisa mencapai setengah buku. Baru bulan ini saya menyelesaikannya hingga akhir.

Saya masih sulit percaya jika McCullers menulis karangannya ini ketika dia berusia dua puluh tiga tahun, usia yang terbilang belia untuk bisa menulis karya fiksi sehebat ini. Begitu kaya pengalaman. Narasi, deskripsi, dan dialog di dalamnya benar-benar membuat saya malu dan iri.

Novel ini mengisahkan beb...more

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Apr 17, 2010

carl theaker rated it

Shelves: modern-library-100

This book ! When someone asks which of the Modern Library top 100
I liked the best, I don't have to pause I reply 'The Heart is the Lonely Hunter'.

Certainly there are close seconds. Part of my criteria is it's a book I think
most people would enjoy and I wouldn't want to scare them off with something like
'Gatsby' which while entirely readable, they may have been scarred with it, or know someone who was, in school.

Heart has that rare combination of re...more

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Apr 27, 2010

Matt rated it

"O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing/O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing/Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still/But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."
-- William Sharp (writing as Fiona MacLeod), The Lonely Hunter

I'd never heard of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. At one point, it was a selection for Oprah's Book Club, but why would I know that? (I wouldn't). It was written by Ca...more

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About Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American writer. She wrote fiction, often described as Southern Gothic, that explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South.

From 1935 to 1937 she divided her time, as her studies and health dictated, between Columbus and New York and in September 1937 she married an ex-soldier and aspiring writer, ...moreCarson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American writer. She wrote fiction, often described as Southern Gothic, that explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South.

From 1935 to 1937 she divided her time, as her studies and health dictated, between Columbus and New York and in September 1937 she married an ex-soldier and aspiring writer, Reeves McCullers. They began their married life in Charlotte, North Carolina where Reeves had found some work. There, and in Fayetteville, North Carolina, she wrote her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, in the Southern Gothic tradition.

The title, suggested by McCullers's editor, was taken from Fiona MacLeod's poem "The Lonely Hunter." However, many (including Carson McCullers) claim she wrote in the style of Southern Realism, a genre inspired by Russian Realism. The novel itself was interpreted as an anti-fascist book. Altogether she published eight books.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), written at the age of twenty-three, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) and The Member of the Wedding (1946), are the best-known. The novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951) also depicts loneliness and the pain of unrequited love. She was an alumna of Yaddo in Saratoga, New York.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was filmed in 1968 with Alan Arkin in the lead role. Reflections in a Golden Eye was directed by John Huston (1967), starring Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. Some of the film was shot in New York City and on Long Island, where Huston was permitted to use an abandoned Army installation.

Many of the interiors and some of the exteriors were done in Italy. "I first met Carson McCullers during the war when I was visiting Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith in upstate New York," said Huston in An Open Book (1980).

"Carson lived nearby, and one day when Buzz and I were out for a walk she hailed us from her doorway. She was then in her early twenties, and had already suffered the first of a series of strokes. I remember her as a fragile thing with great shining eyes, and a tremor in her hand as she placed it in mine. It wasn't palsy, rather a quiver of animal timidity. But there was nothing timid or frail about the manner in which Carson McCullers faced life. And as her afflictions multiplied, she only grew stronger."

After a lifelong health problems including severe alcoholism, McCullers died of brain hemorrhage.
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