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Cover of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers

  • 320 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 1940
  • 64 editions
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1 About this book

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the debut novel of American author Carson McCullers, who was 23 at the time of publication. It is a Southern Gothic novel about a mute man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the U.S. state of Georgia.

The novel was received positively both as a realist commentary on social conflict and as a parable about fascism.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: a love story, a coming-of-age story, and friendship.

  • Racism
  • Romance
  • Psychological fiction
  • Bildungsromans
  • Coming of age
  • Friendship
  • Teenage girls
  • Deaf

2 About Carson McCullers

1917–1967

Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the Southern United States. Her other novels have similar themes. Most are set in the Deep South.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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