BOOK REVIEW: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ★★★☆☆

Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature. The owner of the café where Singer eats every day, a young girl desperate to grow up, an angry drunkard, a frustrated black doctor: each pours their heart out to Singer, their silent confidant, and he in turn changes their disenchanted lives in ways they could never imagine.

“I´m a stranger in a strange land.”

I’ve never read anything by this author or anything to do with the Great Depression in the deep south, yet I have heard of the title, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, from a poem by William Sharp. So, I picked up this hyped-up classic, McCullers’ prodigious first novel at twenty-three, knowing that it would be depressing, but would at least have some room for hope. But boy was I wrong. This was truly depressing to read.

The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear…

On the one hand, McCullers is a good writer. Her writing is clear, exuberates confident and her characterisation and setting realistic in the 1930’s small southern US town from the perspective of five characters who are all struggling from isolation in some way. Unfortunately, this was a slow-paced book, with hardly a plot. This 350+ paged novel consists of these characters wandering around a dusty small town in Georgia with racial tension, and trying to have somewhat meaningful interactions.

She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house.

Initially the book begins with the friendship of two close friends, John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos, who are described as deaf-mutes. They have lived together for several years until the latter becomes mentally ill. He’s then put into an insane asylum away from town. The rest of the book centres on the struggles of four Singer's acquaintances who converse with him about their pain even though he can’t talk back. Five main characters have each chapter rotated from their perspectives. Maybe these characters could have been worked on, as there was hardly any character development.

Mick Kelly (autobiographical character) is a young tomboyish girl from a poor family who loves music and dreams of buying a piano and escaping the town. Jake Blount, an alcoholic communist labourer who rants all the time and gets into fights with the locals. Biff Brannon is an unhappily married observant restaurateur who has some weird, borderline obsession with Mick (was it only me who got that vibe… OK). Dr Benedict Mady Copeland is a black physician, an idealistic who is rallying against racial injustice with an estranged family.

“I do not have any home. So why should I be homesick?”

The book is essentially about how the characters reach out to one another for sympathy and understanding. Their isolated thoughts form a choir of transcendent poignancy. What I liked about it was the themes of loneliness and feeling unfulfilled. I’m impressed that someone so young would write this as her debut novel. There's a sense of weariness that would make me guess an older person had written it. McCullers did do a good job of stepping inside the heads of the different characters.

Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has appeared on many ‘best of’ lists like Modern Library’s best 20th century literature, and Time’s magazine’s best 100 novels of all times. It was probably written to be relevant and scandalous for its time. It wasn’t an easy read, but I can see how this book in the 30's shook up feelings concerning race and poverty.

Apart from that, this book was frustrating to read because it’s soul-crushingly boring. Sometimes something of interest would happen that led me to believe that this was where the story starts, but it was skipped over in a mere paragraph and never mentioned again. Same goes for lack of character development. Yes, they begin with dissatisfaction, and at the end are still dissatisfied, with the expectation of one character who commits suicide.

How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?

The plot had no real substance and this will be a one off read. This book had a good start, with a slow-paced middle which I was put off reading for a bit. The ending was tragic and hits home on the themes of loneliness and feeling unfulfilled. I think The Heart is a Lonely Hunter should be read once in your life, despite it being an outdated novel. This book wasn’t really for me, but I can see why it's rated highly for a specific kind of reader.

Rating: 3/5
Publishers: Houghton Mifflin Co
Publication Date: 1986 (First Published 1940)
Genre: Classic/American/Historical