Carson McCullers: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
by Carson McCullers (1940)
Mariner Books Classics (2004)
368 pp

I think Richard Wright said it well when he wrote about The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter: “I don’t know what the book is about; the nearest I can come to indicating its theme is to refer to the Catholic confessional or the private office of the psychoanalyst.” It’s the novel we read for this month’s library book club, and tonight we get to sit down and discuss it. I’m glad I don’t have to feel the pressure to put my finger on just what it’s all about. The best I can say, having just finished it, is that it is a book about a host of unreciprocated relationships, connections people depend on just to keep going.

Central to the story is a deaf man named John Singer. In the first chapter, we learn that the man Singer lived with for a decade has been placed in an insane asylum. Now Singer lives alone but is always thinking about his friend, who, to be honest, doesn’t (and didn’t) seem to care. Meanwhile, four other individuals in the small Georgia mill town see Singer as a safe place for their own confessions, though they don’t know not the first thing about Singer himself—and they don’t seem to care to ask. In particular, there is the young girl Mick Kelly, who wants to be a musician . . . and turns to a deaf man as the one who might understand her desires best.

And I’m not entirely sure what to make of it all. There’s loneliness and pain throughout, and we watch hopes and dreams rise and fall. But sitting in the aftermath, I’m most intrigued by and mystified by those who come to Singer and who “did not look him in the eye, and in their faces there was neither love nor hate.” 

I’m excited for the discussion tonight. I may not come away with clear answers, but I’m looking forward to where the questions lead.

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