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Journalism of Courage
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
By Carson McCullers
In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The one who steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek8230; The other mute was tall.8221; So began Carson McCullers8217;s memorable 1940 novel, set in a southern town and written when she was just 23. It instantly placed the young American among one of writers of century, mapping as it did lonely, fractured lives lived on the margins. John Singer is shattered when the Greek, his fellow mute, goes insane, and moves ever more out of the mainstream. The rejects and invisibles of society flock to him, but he faces his toughest test yet when his pal dies. It8217;s a book to be read again, and then again.
