The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

This 1940 classic's backstory is in itself fascinating: McCullers was just 23 when it was published, and became an overnight literary sensation. Shortly thereafter she moved to Brooklyn and took up residence in the storied February House. I've long been captured by the poetry of the title, but the story itself wasn't what I expected: it's set in the 1930s in a small Georgia mill town, and focuses on four members of the community, three white and one Black—a poor teenage girl with big dreams, the unhappy owner of the town's popular café, an itinerant political agitator, and an aging and weary Black doctor—as they face their own struggles. Each considers a fifth person to be a friend: a deaf-mute named John Singer, to whom they pour out their troubles, as they perceive him to be a sympathetic listener. None of them realize Singer is dealing with his own private loss, but he has no one to whom he can pour out his troubles. I'm glad I finally read this, but found it utterly desolate.