A novel of great depth and originality, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' is moving and unsentimental. The book's main theme is loneliness and the search for connection. I loved it!
Set in the 1930s in the American deep south, the central character is Mister Singer, a deaf mute. Like Singer, the other four main characters are outsiders with few friends. They are Biff Brannon, a cafe owner; sometime drunk Jake Blount who rails against the expoitation of workers; Benedict Copeland, a "coloured doctor" who is disappointed in the failure of his adult children; and a young girl, Mick Kelly who has a talent for music but no money for lessons.
Mister Singer moves into a room in a boarding house owned by the Kelly family and begins to eat his meals at Biff's New York Cafe. Individually, the four begin to confide in Singer believing they have found someone who truly understands them.
But they are wrong. Singer has no capacity to understand them. They are all projecting a connection that isn't there. One of the saddest moments in the book is when Mick asks Singer if she should drop out of school to take a low paying job in Woolworths and he says yes.
Other moving scenes are where Mick sneaks into a stranger's yard to listen to a radio playing classical music, and when she tries to make a violin out of a broken ukelele and some violin and guitar strings.
Something else the characters don't realise is that Singer is missing deeply his friend and old housemate, Spiros Antanopoulous ( "The show more Greek"), also a deaf mute, who has been taken to an asylum in another town.
One of my favourite, and again, very sad parts of the book was a letter that Singer wrote to the illiterate Greek, describing his four visitors and how they all talk so much and he has no real understanding of what they are saying.
Ironically, the Greek is interested only in food and drink, and doesn't seem to care much for Singer either.
The book's characters and themes transcend time although there are are also some great moments that fix it as being written in the 1940s, for example when 12 year old Mick Kelly buys herself cigarettes, goes to a cafe and orders beer, and leaves her baby brother tied to a wagon and in the care of another infant brother!
There are no happy endings but I won't spoil what happens. show less
Set in the 1930s in the American deep south, the central character is Mister Singer, a deaf mute. Like Singer, the other four main characters are outsiders with few friends. They are Biff Brannon, a cafe owner; sometime drunk Jake Blount who rails against the expoitation of workers; Benedict Copeland, a "coloured doctor" who is disappointed in the failure of his adult children; and a young girl, Mick Kelly who has a talent for music but no money for lessons.
Mister Singer moves into a room in a boarding house owned by the Kelly family and begins to eat his meals at Biff's New York Cafe. Individually, the four begin to confide in Singer believing they have found someone who truly understands them.
But they are wrong. Singer has no capacity to understand them. They are all projecting a connection that isn't there. One of the saddest moments in the book is when Mick asks Singer if she should drop out of school to take a low paying job in Woolworths and he says yes.
Other moving scenes are where Mick sneaks into a stranger's yard to listen to a radio playing classical music, and when she tries to make a violin out of a broken ukelele and some violin and guitar strings.
Something else the characters don't realise is that Singer is missing deeply his friend and old housemate, Spiros Antanopoulous ( "The show more Greek"), also a deaf mute, who has been taken to an asylum in another town.
One of my favourite, and again, very sad parts of the book was a letter that Singer wrote to the illiterate Greek, describing his four visitors and how they all talk so much and he has no real understanding of what they are saying.
Ironically, the Greek is interested only in food and drink, and doesn't seem to care much for Singer either.
The book's characters and themes transcend time although there are are also some great moments that fix it as being written in the 1940s, for example when 12 year old Mick Kelly buys herself cigarettes, goes to a cafe and orders beer, and leaves her baby brother tied to a wagon and in the care of another infant brother!
There are no happy endings but I won't spoil what happens. show less