The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library)
by Carson Mccullers
When she was only twenty-three, Carson McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She was very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal. The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.
From the Paperback edition.
Book Club Questions for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library) (Fiction)
Book Club Questions for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library) (for Non-Fiction)
On a side note-there is a book that “A Love Song for Bobby Long” was based off of called ‘Off Magazine Street’ that I own but have yet to read- but I’ve heard is excellent! And I’m looking forward to reading it as the movie is INCREDIBLE and one of my all-time favourites.
‘A Love Song for Bobby Long’ is one of my absolute favourite movies, and in the movie Bobby Long refers to ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ as “the story of misfits” and one of the main songs is titled the same. This was enough for me to want to read it, and then it appeared on my Reader’s List at Number 52.
The summary on the back lead me to believe it was going to have a ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ feel, and that assumption was somewhat correct. But instead of loved, secure characters-the characters in ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ are strange, insecure and on the outskirts of society. People you can identify with-but don’t want to admit that you do. People that you root for, want to succeed-but won’t lend them a hand.
Their individual stories are wonderfully blended, thier meetings make sense. And I think the most wonderful parts were of their ideas on each other-they don’t see or describe each other as the characters describe or feel about themselves. In most cases, it’s really quite opposite.
And for a book that I’d so looked forward to reading and had been built up so much-I still enjoyed it immensely and it didn’t let me down in the least!
