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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

By: Carson McCullers
Narrated by: Cherry Jones
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Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.

Richard Wright was astonished by McCullers's ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." Hers is a humanity that touches all who come to her work, whether for the first time or, as so many do, time and time again. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, most enduring best.

Check out more selections from Oprah's Book Club.©1940, 1967 Carson Smith McCullers (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers African American Coming of Age Education Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction LGBTQIA+ Essentials Literary Fiction Parenting & Families Parents & Adult Children Women's Voices Inspiring

Critic reviews

  • Audie Award Finalist, Classics, 2005

"A remarkable book...[McCullers writes] with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming." (The New York Times)

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Complex Characters • Poignant Storytelling • Thought-provoking Themes • Rich Symbolism • Masterful Writing

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and read this book. I saw the movie almost 30 years ago and was impressed but never realized the scope and depth of the original novel. The gushy praise of the Audible edition by users on the Audible Yahoogroup teased me into downloading it, and even then I put off listening for a while, thinking that "literature" might very well mean BORING. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Cherry Jones does a fantastic job of delivering the narrative, and the story is phenomenal; moving, acerbic, provocative, painful and compelling. There aren't many books worthy of this kind of praise, and fewer still have been so skillfully rendered in audio editions. GO FOR IT!

Do yourself a favor

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The characters in this book were well-drawn, and I think the author got to their core. The narration helped in that regard as each character had his or her own subtle voice.

This is the story of many lonely people who wanted more and were denied. Each life intertwined with the deaf-mute, Mr. Singer, who was ultimately the loneliest in his prison of silence. It's not a book to listen to if you are feeling down, but well worth hearing for the characters and their points of view.

Well-drawn characters

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"Southerners are more lonely and estranged. I think because we have lived so long in an artificial social system that we insisted was natural and right and just--when all along we knew it wasn't." Carson McCullers

"I am a lone lorn creatur...and everythink goes contrairy with me." Mrs. Gummidge, David Copperfield.


This veracious Southern Gothic novel, with its common gothic staples of disfigurement, disease, brutality and mortality present in a dull and mean small Southern town, makes for a compelling, albeit painful, study of isolation and loneliness in a Georgia milling town in the 1930s.

At the center is a deaf mute who lip-reads named John Singer. The beginning of the novel starts with Singer's longtime friend and roommate Spiros, a morbidly obese Greek deaf mute, losing his sanity and being committed to an asylum. Singer is left all alone in the small Georgia town, terribly missing his only true friend.

The remaining characters gravitate to Singer as fragments of steel to a magnet as they struggle mightily to escape loneliness and see some kind of meaning in their lives. Singer seems to listen and care but says nothing back (even though, as he only knows, he was taught how to speak). These widely diverging characters therefore see in Singer who they believe or imagine him to be, a looking glass of their wants.

Jake Blount is a frustrated and idealistic working man who stews in his brew and becomes violent at a hair trigger. He is a social reformer who aspires to stir the working masses to a revolt and sees Singer as his audience to speeches he'll never deliver to an audience more than one.

Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland is an African-American physician who suffers from tuberculosis. Dr. Copeland obsesses over his wish that his people be saved from docile submission. Unfortunately, his gruffness and aloofness turn off his people from hearing what he has to say. He believes (without any particular reason) that Singer is Jewish and thinks him the only compassionate white he has ever known and that Singer can identify with Copeland as both are members of an oppressed class.

Mick Kelly is a pubescent tomboy who loves music and dreams of playing a piano and composing symphonies one day. She believes that, though Singer is deaf, he can hear music in his head and she tells him of her wishes and dreams. She is soon forced to confront life in poverty in which she may be required to quit school and go to work.

Finally, Biff Brannon is a cafe' owner who observes much, but is trapped in a loveless, childless marriage. After his wife's death, he becomes awfully lonely and would like to connect with any of the other four characters. In a cruel irony, these characters all effectively rebuff Biff's efforts, thus rejecting the only person who accepts them and offer them a human connection.

I guess the moral is that we all need to connect with other people, but it is nearly impossible to do so in any significant way; and, perhaps, if we do connect, we'd best be unselfish and do all we can to keep the wire live.

The Painful Realities of Small Town Southern Life

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This book is good if you are interested in widening your literary knowledge, but it is pretty sad. I gave up 2/3rds of the way through, needed a break. I do care how it ends, so I will finish it after I have read/listened to something a bit lighter. The narrator is good.

depressing

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Like listening to a lullaby. Great characterizations and distinctions. Swept away into Carson McCullers world thanks to the talented Cherry Jones.

Cherry Jones voice is pure poetry

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