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Guests | October 20, 2009

Vincent McCaffrey: IMG A Practical Matter



It was in a letter of 1897, about his cousin James Ross Clemens, that Mark Twain famously noted that "the report of my death was an exaggeration." He... Continue »
  1. $16.80 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    Hound: A Mystery

    Vincent McCaffrey

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

With the publication of her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940.

At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music.

Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated — and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the New York Times. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.

Review:

"To me the most impressive aspect of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the astonishing humanity that enables a white writer, for the first time in Southern fiction, to handle Negro characters with as much ease and justice as those of her own race." Richard Wright, The New Republic

Review:

"McCullers leaves her characters hauntingly engraved in the reader's memory." The Nation

Review:

"[McCullers] writes with a calm and factual realism, and with a deep and abiding insight into human psychology. She does so without an iota of vulgarity and bawdiness, in a manner which many a present day novelist would do well to study." The Boston Globe

Review:

"When one puts [this book] down, it is with...a feeling of having been nourished by the truth." May Sarton

Review:

"The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter has remarkable power, sweep and certainty....Her art suggests a Van Gogh painting peopled with Faulkner figures." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"There is not only the delicately sensed need that one might expect youth to know but an even more delicately sensed ironic knowledge." Chicago Tribune

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
Grandmamaher, October 30, 2008 (view all comments by Grandmamaher)
I have not read this book; I don't even own it yet. But, from the title, and the synopsis, it sounds like a very encouraging book. One that would be a positive influence on anybody who has a handicap, whether it be hearing, sight, or anything else.
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(3 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
christijensen, October 19, 2006 (view all comments by christijensen)
Read this after you read Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. This should become a book you hold close to your heart and recommend to others.
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(12 of 27 readers found this comment helpful)
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780618526413
Author:
McCullers, Carson
Publisher:
Mariner Books
Author:
Mariner
Location:
Boston
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Classics
Subject:
Friendship
Subject:
Deaf
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Teenage girls
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Trade paper
Publication Date:
April 2004
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
368
Dimensions:
8.34x5.58x.90 in. .83 lbs.

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