The heart is a lonely hunter - by Carson McCullers

This book was recommended in Oprah's book club.

McCullers wrote this book when she was just twenty three and it is said to have immediately put her in the category of other great american authors like Hemingway and Faulkner. Her portrayal of race relations in the deep south; the pathos and loneliness in her characters and the
overall feeling of crushed dreams and hopes is simply extraordinary.
The story revolves around a group of people living in this small industrial town in the Carolinas who find solace and comfort not with one another but with a deaf and dumb mute(Singer). The mute can read their lips so that they can talk with him but even greater is his capacity to really relate to what they are trying to say. Most of them are sad/despondent with failed dreams, lost spouses and no/little hopes and are looking for a friend who can understand them and confide with.
There is this young girl,Mick who is interested in music. She is really a tomboy who has just grown up to discover that she is really a girl and can't fight out with guys anymore. Since they do not have a radio, she wanders around town in the rich parts just to hear some music.She wants to compose music and tries to even make a violin out of a broken ukulele and some strings but the instrument does not work out. She composes new tunes in her head and wants to write them out but cannot do so because she does not have a formal music education.

An old african american doctor; Copeland wants to uplift his people from their bad situation but cannot do so because of his people's inability to think big or better for themselves. The idea of being inferior to the white race is so deeply ingrained in their minds that they have accepted it as a fact and do not want to challenge it.The story comes to a point where the doctor's son is tortured in a prison camp and his legs have to be amputated but still the community does not want to antagonize the whites... The whole thing is kind of depressing at this
point.
A well educated but alcoholic communist Blount comes into town and starts working at the local fair where the mill workers come at night for entertainment. He tries to start some kind of a workers movement but again is met with distrust and suspicion.
The mute becomes a good friend to all these troubled people but the unfortunate thing is that he can never talk to them. He used to have a deaf dumb companion with whom he used to talk incessantly but his companion had to be sent to a mental institution. Singer visits his
friend Antonopoulous every six months bringing him gifts and talks about his new friends back home. Once when Singer goes to visit his friend, he finds that he is no more.He is so heartbroken that he comes back into town and shoots himself. Things turn to the worse for his friends who are left with no one with whom they can share their troubles and loneliness. Finally all of them either drift away or grudgingly accept their lonely existence.