The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"When one puts [this book] down, it is with . . . a feeling of having been nourished by the truth." --May Sarton

“To me the most impressive aspect of THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is the astonishing humanity that enables a white writer, for the first time in Southern fiction, to handle Negro characters with as much ease and justice of those of her own race. This cannot be accounted for stylistically or politically; it seems to stem from an attitude toward life.” -- Richard Wright

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

When she was only twenty-three, Carson  McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She  was very special, one of America's superlative  writers who conjures up a vision of existence as  terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering  voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation  that underlies the human condition. This novel is  the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's  enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange  young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small  Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal.  The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the  rejected. Some fight their loneliness with  violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some  -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal  search for beauty.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (June 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553269631
• ISBN-13: 978-0553269635
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (176 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #513,430 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tugs at chord of isolation we all have. Excellent book!, August 24, 2002

By	Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This 1940 novel by Carson McCullers is set in a small southern town. It's about five different people and their relationships to each other. There is surface structure inasmuch as the chapters move back and forth, focusing on one character and then another and moving the action forward. But there's an appealing off-center feeling to it all, as this study in what it means to be a human being reflects the human condition without having to tie it all up in a neat little package.

Driving the story is John Singer, a deaf mute. When his friend Sprios, a fellow deaf mute, goes insane, John Singer attracts other alienated people, who pour their hearts out to him, believing that he understands everything. There's Jake, who drinks hard, requires constant stimulation of his senses to feel alive, and views the world though a communist philosophy. There's Dr. Copeland, a black physician, who so wants to improve the condition of his race, that he has driven his wife and children away because they never fit the picture of the way he wanted them to be. There's Mick, the adolescent girl, introspective and intuitive, who dreams of a future filled with music and travel. And then there is Biff, the owner of the Café, who collects old newspapers and tries to make sense out of what is going on around him. Everyone feels that the deaf-mute has some sort of magical presence. But yet, he too, proves to be very human.

The town itself is important to the story, and Ms. McCullers' makes use of the rhythms of the seasons and of music to bring the reader right there. The coming-of-age of the adolescent made me sad and the realities of racism caused me to cringe in horror. The alienation is deeply frustrating. This is exemplified by one very moving scene where two men debate how to handle injustices. Both men want the same things, but yet they talk past each other, each demanding that the other must follow a certain prescribed ideology.

Each character is restricted by limitations. Each one has desires. And each one has his or her desires crushed. How each one reacts and how this interaction affects everyone else is the essence of the story. The author's skill pulls it all together masterfully. It's a disturbing book as it tugs at that chord of isolation that exists in all of us. And yet, it is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the lonely heart, May 31, 2004

By	Diane Schirf "www.slywy.com" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Highly recommended.

Only 23 when she wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers captures the restless energy of adolescence and the loneliness and isolation of those who choose not to fit into their world-Mick Kelly, an artistic teenager whose titles and graffiti reveal a darker side to her personality; Jake Blount, an itinerant socialist; Benedict Mady Copeland, a consumptive black physician; and Biff Brannon, owner of the New York Café. Linking this disparate group of outsiders is the ironically named John Singer, a man who cannot talk (or sing). They are drawn to him, as lonely people are to someone they believe will listen and understand. They never step out of themselves to discover that Singer listens, but he doesn't understand, nor do they realise that he, too, is lonely and isolated-or why.

Just as these four impose their concept of Singer upon him, he has his own idol-his companion of 10 years, Spiros Antonapoulos. While Singer's lonely friends project upon him the character of a wise, knowing, understanding man, Singer in turn imposes a similar personality on Antonapoulos. His life revolves around his rare visits to the asylum to which Antonapoulos is eventually taken. As the reader's awareness of Antonapoulos as a childish, greedy, and lazy man grows, so grows Singer's faith in him as gentle and wise. As a fellow mute, Antonapoulos is all Singer has, so he both idealises and idolises him-in the same way that Mick, Blount, Copeland, and, to a lesser extent, Brannon idealise and idolise Singer.

Rarely do any of the four interact, except when Blount and Dr. Copeland engage in a circular argument about how best to help their peoples-victims of capitalism in Blount's case, blacks in Dr. Copeland's. These two groups have much in common, but just as Blount and Dr. Copeland remain in bitter conflict, so do their peoples-a conflict which is alluded to throughout and which culminates in a brawl at the carnival grounds where Jake works. Dr. Copeland and Jake never find common ground, nor do the poor white laborers and oppressed blacks they wish to enlighten. Dr. Copeland's self-sacrificing but hopeless dedication and Jake's self-destructive brutality could be seen as representing their time and place, the 1930s South.

Sexual ambiguity pervades the novel. It is never clear whether Singer and Antonapoulos are lovers, although it seems like that that is what lies behind Singer's uncritical devotion. Even when Antonapoulos's selfish, greedy, irrational behaviour drives away a third mute, Singer is merely disappointed at the loss of a potential friend-as long as he has Antonapoulos, he is content. After Antonapoulos leaves, ". . . in the spring a change came over Singer . . . his body was very restless . . . unable to work off a new feeling of energy."

This sexual energy is shared by Mick, who is always restless. This isolates her even more from the rest of her family: her father, a disabled carpenter trying half-heartedly to make a living; her mother, for whom Mick acts as a substitute parent for her younger brothers Bubber (George) and Ralph; her older brother Bill, once close to her and now distant; and her older sisters Hazel and Etta, who have been forced from adolescence into adulthood through work and their own conventional interest in celebrity. (One could speculate about the nature of the "diseased ovary" Etta develops.)

Mick lives in an "inside room," where she finds peace in music and in her perceptions of her friendship with Singer. Later, after her sexual initiation, she finds herself slyly manipulated into taking a job by her apparently solicitous family; at this point, she notices that, while the "inside room" is still important, she has less time and energy for it. McCullers exposition of Mick's transition from inventive childhood to dulling adulthood is subtle and is one of the best aspects of the novel.

Of the four, Brannon is the most enigmatic. After his wife dies, he redecorates in what seems a distinctly unmasculine way (in contrast to his heavy, black beard, the subject of many comments). Even more interesting, he begins to wear his late wife's perfume. While he observes, defends, and supports Jake, his sexual feelings are focused on Mick, to whom he seems distant and cold (in her naiveté, Mick attributes his attitude to the fact that she and Bubber shoplifted gum from the café). Not surprisingly, after Mick is sexually initiated, obtains a job, and begins to dress and behave more like a girl on the cusp of womanhood, Brannon loses interest and consequently warms up to her. She is now no more of a challenge to his impotence than his late wife was.

McCullers weaves a dense cloth of themes. First, there is the inward and selfish nature of loneliness. No one ever truly reaches out; in fact, Mick's Jewish neighbor Harry, appalled by fascism and Hitler, and Brannon are the only characters who are interested in the greater world. The conditions of the working poor and the black experience are eloquently portrayed without much narrative or focus on details. By the end, everything and nothing has changed. Mick is determined to escape fate through music, unlikely as it seems; a weakened Dr. Copeland becomes unable to carry on his "strong, true purpose." Blount leaves town to find someone who will finally accept the basket of ideas that haunts his nightmares; Brannon, "suspended between bitter irony and faith," faces the dawn exactly as he has for years.

McCullers' portrayal of these disparate characters are true to life and reveal a remarkable insight into people, no matter their age, gender, race, or background-an insight that is lacking in her self-absorbed characters. The heart is a lonely hunter, so it will find what it wishes to-love-in the most unlikely of places. It would take many re-readings to mine the richness here.

Diane L. Schirf, 31 May 2004.

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Heart is a Lonely Hunter~, January 26, 2002

By	Sandra Mitchell "Sandra Mitchell" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One of the most amazing things about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is that Carson McCullers was only 23 when she wrote this. The writing in this novel is incredible. I think the reader should be prepared for the fact that this story is melancholy and can be depressing at times, but at the same time is brilliant in its character depth and social understanding. I wish I would have read this novel in highschool as there is clearly a lot of symbolism and statement that would lead to great discussions. The center of this novel is John Singer a deaf-mute who is feeling abandoned after his life-long friend Antonapoulos is sent away to a distant hospital. The novel introduces us to 4 lives: a young girl named Mick who grows up in poverty; Dr. Copeland, an African-American doctor; Jake Blount a wandering alcoholic and Biff Brannon a cafe owner. We learn the loneliness and pain of each of these characters and watch as each one is drawn to the mute, John Singer. McCullers details her novel with many truths about the human spirit, as well as some political and social statements of her own. It is said that much of the novel is autobiographical as McCullers was raised in a small southern town, primarily by her African-American maid. I would suggest that the reading of this novel is coupled with a little research about McCullers and some background info on the novel for full appreciation. Upon completion I am glad that I read this and can appreciate it for all that it offers and is trying to say.