The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers debut novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was written in 1940 when she was only 23-years old.  It was an immediate bestseller and routinely ranks as one of the top 100 English-language novels of the century.  It is set-in small-town Georgia in the “recovery” years after the Great Depression. It was explosively controversial when published and remains so today because of the issues raised in the book: the spread of communism, rising fascism in Europe, and income inequality and racism in America.

The main character in the book is a deaf mute named John Singer.  He carries a card he presents to people when he meets them explaining that he is deaf, but an expert lip reader, he will write out sentences when necessary.  It is to him that the other primary characters reveal themselves, routinely telling him everything that is on their minds, believing he understands and agrees with them because he rarely lets them know otherwise. They are: a girl going through adolescence, he lives at the bordering house run by her parents; the widowed owner of a café where much of the action takes place; a labor-organizer/budding communist, who works as a carnival barker and is an alcoholic; and an African American medical doctor.  Singer’s story is never clear even though his attachment to another deaf mute, Spiros, who has been forcibly committed to a mental institution by an Uncle, plays a major role in the novel.

   

Many reviewers of the book have zeroed in on “love” as being what motivates each of the characters. I don’t, at least not in the sense of a lonely hearts club romance.  Longing is a factor, but it is not necessarily a physical love.  Mick, the young girl, for instance longs for an escape from the town, a career as a composer – she is devastated when she must take a job at Woolworth's when she is just 16 to help her family.  She realizes the decision will likely end her education, end her ambitions.             

“Mick frowned and rubbed her fist hard across her forehead.  That was the way things were.  It was like she was mad all the time.  Not how a kid gets mad quick so that soon it is all over – but in another way.  Only there was nothing to be mad at.  Unless the store.  But the store hadn’t asked her to take the job.  So there was nothing to be mad at.  It was like she was cheated.  Only nobody had cheated her.  So there, just the same she had that feeling.  Cheated.”

The doctor, old and in poor health himself, encompasses the longing in the book most clearly.  He has struggled and longed to see his family, and his people, rise up and prosper, only to see them beat down by the South, and then beaten down further by their acceptance of those circumstances. He oddly shares the political philosophy of the labor organizer (and in fact even named one of his sons after Karl Marx).  He puzzles over his friendship with Singer, the only white man he feels understands him.

Near the end of the book, Singer will commit suicide.  He does so when he learns that his friend who was forcibly institutionalized has died. Spiros, a troubled young man on multiple fronts, as a fellow deaf mute, was the only one who Singer thought knew him.  He was to Singer, what Singer was to the other characters in the book.  This comes strikingly clear shortly after Singer learns of Spiros’ death.  He is passing a tavern/restaurant when he realizes there is a table of three deaf men signing away inside, he stops and joins them briefly, though doesn't feel welcome.  He departs to catch his train. Singer’s lonely heart is the lack of a community that understands his reality.

Recommendation:  Yes, and no.  This is not an easy read, if you are looking for pleasure reading, this is not it.  If you are looking for biting, often painful social criticism, this is a masterpiece.  The 1968 movie of the novel is, in a word, awful.