When I first started reading this book, all I knew was that it was Carson McCullers' first book, that it was published in 1940 when she was 23, and that it was set in the Southern United States. I honestly think that it is best to go into this book with little knowledge, thus with no preconceptions. (So if you haven't read the book and plan to, you might want to skip this review.) But I did want to record my thoughts on the book. This is my book for the last Classic Club Spin and is also the fifth book I read for 20 Books of Summer.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a novel set in a small town in Georgia during the Depression. It focuses on people who were very poor, having a hard time making ends meet, sometimes even without enough food for proper nourishment. The main characters are misfits or loners; people who don't fit in.
As the story starts, there are two deaf mutes in the town, John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos. They are fast friends, and live together. After some time, Antonapoulos starts behaving irrationally and his cousin commits him to an asylum. Singer moves into a room in a boarding house. Whenever he can get away from his job, he takes a train to visit Antonapoulos at the asylum and takes food to him.
The boarding house that Singer lives in is run by the Kelly family. Mick Kelly is the fourth child of six in the Kelly family, 13 years old when the story begins. Her family is very poor and that only worsens throughout the book. She begins to visit Singer in his room. When she listens to his radio, she discovers that she loves music and wants to create it; she has neither the free time nor the money to learn how to do this.
Jake Blount is a mechanic for a carnival, an alcoholic, a Marxist, and a trouble maker. One night Singer takes him home after he gets drunk at Biff's café, and Jake decides he is a friend.
Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland is a Black physician who is estranged from his family. He wants to lead his people out of ignorance and improve their conditions, but he cannot even communicate with his own family. He also strikes up a relationship with Singer after he treats him courteously, the first white man to do so.
John Singer is at the center of the story. We know little about him beyond his love for Antonapoulos. Yet one by one Mick, Biff, Jake, and Dr. Copeland come to him for support, even though Singer does not know what they want from him. They latch on to him as a savior or mentor. They visit him in his boarding house room, and talk to him about their lives, their hopes, and their problems, and he just listens and nods.
This is just an overview of the characters in the book. There is so much more to the story: other interesting characters and how they all interact; the interior lives of the main characters; the state of this part of the world at the time.
After I finished this book, I wasn't sure what I thought of it. It was a sad book, uncomfortable at times, but I was glad I had read the book. It is beautifully written and I was never bored. I liked reading about the unusual characters. The book and the characters stayed in my head long after I finished reading it.
The setting was intriguing because I was raised in Alabama. I don't remember that Georgia was specifically mentioned as the setting in the book, but I assume that there are pointers in the book to that. At first I thought the story might be set in Mississippi, because there is a Sardis Lake in Mississippi that I have been to; and there is mention of someone going to Biloxi, a coastal city in Mississippi. But there is also a Sardis Lake in Georgia. Regardless, this depiction of a small town in the southern US in the years before the US entered World War II was of great interest to me.
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Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2000 (orig. publ. 1940)
Length: 359 pages
Format: Trade paperback
Setting: Georgia, USA, small town
Genre: Fiction
Source: Purchased at the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, 2019.
14 comments:
I'm glad you were drawn into the story, Tracy, even if it was uncomfortable or sad reading at times. To me, that's the mark of a good story: the reader is drawn in and wants to know more. I like it, too, when a story has a lot of layers, as this one does. . I'm glad you got things from it.
And the movie with Alan Arkin is very good. Amazing first novel. SO much depth.
I have a copy of this on my shelves but still haven't read it. From everything I've heard about the novel, the thing that amazes me is that McCullers was so young when she wrote it. She had to be an extraordinary young woman, especially coming up in the thirties when it was so difficult for women to carve out a meaningful life for themselves.
It is really a good book, Margot, with a lot of depth. Based on the title, not at all what I expected. Which was fine.
Patti, it is hard to believe that she wrote the book when she was so young. I haven't seen the movie.
Sam, I have not read much about McCullers life, it would be interesting to read more about her. And I want to read more of her books too. She did not write many other novels, though.
Hi Tracy, I must read this because I read A Member of The Wedding when I was in high school and loved it and thinking back I am glad my high school assigned A Member of The Wedding because I worry that nowadays they are not assigning her novels and that would be a big mistake.
Kathy, A member of the wedding is one I am especially interested in. I plan to check for anything by her at the book sale in September, and I will probably read whatever I find there first. If I am unlucky at the sale, I may consider getting a Library of America edition of her novels.
I always wonder how specific the author intends to be with setting - enough to make you think you are there or know it vs. a general sense of the area. And if it is not the author's home turf or well known, I always think they should find someone to be a trusted reader. That is a big mistake American writers often make when setting books in another country.
I like the cover of this edition. I have a feeling this was a summer reading assignment for me when I was too young to appreciate it but I am not sure. However, you have given me new incentive to read it.
Constance, I just read that Carson McCullers grew up in Columbus, Georgia, which is in a country bordering on Alabama, and just across the border from Phenix City, Alabama which was well known for organized crime and gambling in the 1940s and 50s. Then, at 17 she moved to New York City. I am going to see if I can find a good biography about her life.
I don't remember any of the books that I had for assigned reading in high school (or college).
Fascinating way to write a book. I'm not sure it's one I want to read but I certainly enjoyed reading about it. The South is in my head at the moment as I just finished a book set in South Carolina... not that it was anything like this one as it was a horror book, but still, that unique atmosphere was there.
Cath, the structure of this novel is unusual but it made me curious and I read it eagerly. I think it was a very unusual book to come from a Southern author in 1940 (not that I am an expert on Southern literature). I usually hope for a happy or at least hopeful ending, but realistically I did not expect that here once I was a good ways into the book. Same thing with SS-GB by Len Deighton that I read two books later. Right now I am reading The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny and hoping for a brighter ending in that book.
The only thing I've ever really known or heard about this book is that my sister had to read it in high school and she totally hated it. Which is probably why I've never even thought about reading it. But maybe I should give it a try someday just to see.
Lark, This was a very strange book, and maybe I just read it at a time when I was ready for it. It seemed very realistic and a very sad picture of life in the South, during the depression. I think it does matter at what age you read it, but it still isn't an entertaining read. If I had not read it for the Classics Club, I would not have reviewed it, because I don't know how to explain its impact.
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