The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

 by Carson McCullers | review by Meredith McKinnie

“People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things that no one else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human.”

Carson McCullers’ debut novel in 1940 examines the misfits of society, the characters with the rigid edges that don’t conform to societal expectations. In a rural, poverty-stricken town in Georgia, John Singer is a deaf mute who serves as the ultimate listener. Recently separated from his best friend, Singer wanders around the town, encountering locals who are lost in some way. Mick Kelly has 14-year-old aspirations far removed from the reality of her family’s financial conditions. Jake Blount searches daily for his next fight, usually based on philosophical discussions outside his neighbor’s immediate concerns. Biff Brannon, the local diner owner, is shouldering a personal loss that feels more like an escape, and Dr. Copeland is struggling to be respected as a doctor, while being ill-treated as an African American. All these misfits find comfort in telling their troubles to Singer, a man who never actually speaks back to them, only providing a safe space to voice their frustrations, to channel their troubles. While rarely interacting with one another, the characters find connection via the idolization of the enigma of Singer. 

McCullers explores themes of loneliness, isolation, and loss. What all the misfits have in common is a desire to fight, either against circumstance, expectation, or reality. They share an unwillingness to entertain counter perspectives as evidenced by their decision to confide in someone who cannot verbally rebut their claims. Singer represents the moral consciousness we all turn to for guidance and resist due to personal indulgence. McCullers’ strong characterizations present the integral factors of race, attitude, and class that so often determine the path of someone’s life before they have the chance to live it. McCullers presents the hope in America’s founding promise and the heartbreak in its disappointment for so many. 

McCullers wrote the masterpiece when she was only 23 years old. It cemented her popularity and recognition as a literary trailblazer, especially in the closing chapters of the modern era. The novel has been adapted into a film, theater production, and even a radio special. Even though we are closer to the novel’s centennial anniversary than its inception, the themes and considerations evoked on the pages remain current and telling, highlighting the mystery of interpersonal relationships as the most compelling narratives of all. 

“All we can do is go around telling the truth.”