THE BOOK FAIR

“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”, a warm and sensitive story promoting social reform, is McCuller’s most famous novel.  “The Member of the Wedding”, the story of an adolescent girl coming of age, is another.  The author was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917.  Carson McCullers suffered from Rheumatic fever and alcoholism and died in Nyack, New York, in 1967, at age 50 years old.

 

John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos, are two close friends, both deaf and mute.  The two men lived together for years, until Spiro begins to suffer from depression and erratic.  The mental illness becomes out of control and in spite of John’s efforts to save Spiro, he lands in an asylum, a decision of Spiro’s cousin.

John seeks out the friendship of others who have suffered loss in life.

Biff Brannon, who owns the café where the men gather, loses his wife with whom he had little relationship, Mick Kelly, a teenager who loves of music and dreams of owning a piano, Dr. Copeland, a Black physician, who wants a better life and opportunities for his children, one of whom is in prison, and Jake Blout, an alcoholic and social organizer. 

 

Beautifully written.