The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Combining the themes of our last two meetings, on June 1st we'll be discussing The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, written by a dead white woman and taking place in the South (I am tacitly assuming here the theme of Faulkner's work wasn't 'confusion'). Courtesy of Amazon.com, here are some reviews:

The New York Times : "A remarkable book . . . [McCullers] writes with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming."

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

New Republic : "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

Saturday Review : "One cannot help remarking that this is an extraordinary novel to have been written by a young woman of twenty-two; but the more important fact is that it is an extraordinary novel in its own right, considerations of authorship apart." -- Saturday Review of Literature

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

I look forward to seeing you there!

-John

EDIT: Just so you know, we are reading Hesse after this. McCullers tied with Dinesen in the previous poll, so we decided to read them both before moving on to Narcissus and Goldmund.