The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Aug 18, 2025 3:10 PM

Author:Carson McCullers

'She has examined the heart of man with an understanding ... that no other writer can hope to surpass' Tennessee Williams

Often cited as one of the great novels of twentieth-century American fiction, Carson McCullers' prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature. The owner of the café where Singer eats every day, a young girl desperate to grow up, an angry socialist drunkard, a frustrated black doctor: each pours their heart out to Singer, their silent confidant, and he in turn changes their disenchanted lives in ways the could never imagine. Moving, sensitive and deeply humane, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter explores loneliness, the human need for understanding and the search for love.

Reviews

A remarkable book ... [McCullers] writes with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming

—— The New York Times

Of all the Southern writers, she is the most apt to endure

—— Gore Vidal

Again [McCullers] shows a sort of subterranean and ageless instinct for probing the hidden in men's hearts and minds

—— New York Herald-Tribune

Amusing, terrifying and ultimately sobering

—— New York Times Book Review

Erudite, funny and disarming, this is a love story for grown-ups, with an ending that, by simultaneously defying and fulfilling the reader's romantic expectations, manages to be entirely satisfying.

—— Christina Koning, The Times

Truong's pen is a scalpel, laying perfect words down along that nerve until even the happiest reader understands what it means to forever stand apart from your family and the larger society you inhabit...The novel's end is neither bitter nor sweet, but the perfect combination of both

—— Los Angeles Times

If you liked The Shaking Woman by Siri Hustvedt, you'll love Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong... a tale of friendship, loyalty, love, family, and above all, the mysteries that make us who we are

—— Tatler

With a heroine who literally eats words, Truong is amply aware of the power of them... she wields her narrative like a quarterstaff, knocking readers' expectations right out from under them

—— Washington Post

Monique Truong creates a world so subtle, mysterious, moving and sensory that it heightens our consciousness of those qualities in our own. Bitter in the Mouth is the rare novel that makes one life story unique and universal at the same time

—— Gloria Steinem

Be prepared for a full range of tastes of life in Bitter in the Mouth: friendship, loyalty, love, family, and above all, the mysteries at every corner of one's history that make us who we are. Monique Truong is a great observer and a beautiful writer

—— Yiyun Li

A terrific writer... She's changed my perception on life

—— Anna Chancellor

A classic of contemporary Americana... variously funny and horrifying and finally, quietly, terribly moving

—— Los Angeles Times

A book that should join those few that every literate person will have to read

—— Boston Globe

A novelist who knows what a proper story is . . . [Tyler is] not only a good and artful writer, but a wise one as well

—— Newsweek

In her ninth novel she has arrived at a new level of power

—— The New Yorker

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