The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the debut 1940 novel by American author Carson McCullers. It is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the U.S. state of Georgia. It created a literary sensation on publication, enjoying a meteoric rise to the top of the bestseller lists in 1940 and was the first in a string of works by McCullers to give voice to the rejected, forgotten, mistreated and oppressed. The novel was chosen as a selection for Oprah's Book Club in 2004.

Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Plot introduction

The struggles of four of John Singer's primary acquaintances make up the majority of the narrative. They are Mick Kelly, a young girl; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; Biff Brannon, a restaurateur; and Dr. Benedict Copeland, an idealistic African-American doctor.

Film adaptation

Play adaptation

A stage adaptation of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter premiered on March 30, 2005 at The Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. The show ran until April 24 of that year, and then toured. The play was an Alliance Theater presentation done in association with The Acting Company out of New York. The play was in two acts adapted from the novel by Rebecca Gilman and directed by Doug Hughes.

References

External links

• Review
• The Carson McCullers project
• What the Oprah book club had to say