The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

English language

Published July 10, 2000

ISBN:
978-0-618-08474-6
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4 stars (18 reviews)

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the debut novel by the American author Carson McCullers; she was 23 at the time of publication. It is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia. A. S. Knowles, Jr., author of "Six Bronze Petals and Two Red: Carson McCullers in the Forties," wrote that the book "still seems to capture [the author's total sensibility more completely than her other works." Frederic I. Carpenter wrote in The English Journal that the novel "essentially [...] described the struggle of all these lonely people to come to terms with their world, to become members of their society, to find human love—in short, to become mature."

5 editions

Striking depiction of queerness in the early 20th Century South

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I think I added this book to my list when I saw @toddrobbins mark it was "to read," and I'm glad I did. After reading this, Mick and Mr. Singer became two of my favorite characters of all time. The depiction of queerness is really interesting and seems way ahead of its time for 1940, and the depiction of childhood is striking too (not to mention how the novel addresses both of these through the character of Mick).

Review of 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Just recently re-read this after maybe 25-30 years (LOL I am OLD). It still holds up. In fact I'll bump the rating up 1/2 of a star to 4 1/2 stars. When I think that Carson McCullers was only 22-23 (?) when she wrote this...just wow. She understood human longing for connection, to make a difference in the world. She understood how we can feel cheated when we realize we will just have an ordinary life, that most of our dreams and wishes will not be fulfilled. She understood a young girl's emotional pain as she matured, the obsessive thoughts, and unfortunately, the post traumatic stress she, all too often, chooses to hide from the world.

This author created great, believable characters whose pain you felt because you understood them fully, as horrible and hateful as they could sometimes be. Unlike the relationships the characters have with Singer... they might …

Review of 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Commute audiobook. Not thrilled with the narration.

Book was fine. I keep seeing it compared to To Kill A Mockingbird but I much prefer TKAM.

It's about a lot of things: class, race, the change that comes with time, isolation, hope, failure, loneliness, innocence, and basically lots of things that make up the modern human experience. These are all interesting subjects to think about. But I didn't really care one way or the other about any of the characters; and I hated the rubbish representation of African American English, which sounded way too "uncle Remus-y" and made it hard to take the characters whose dialogue was written that way seriously.

Review of 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers, is one of the saddest books I've ever read, so sad that it was hard for me to read much of it at a time. I felt for each and every one of the characters and the frustration over how people who have much in common still cannot take comfort in each other. Because of this inability to connect and see things as they really are, everyone is very alone. Each character has a dream, a purpose, or something he or she looks forward to, and without this, life seems pointless. Unfortunately, these dreams are unattainable and become torments. Mick Kelly is a particularly tragic character, an unusually bright girl growing up with a clear idea of what she would love to do in life, but no means of attaining that goal. There are four troubled and thoughtful personalities who are …