Now, a Literary Moment...

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is set before World War Two in a Georgia mill town. Author Carson McCullers wrote the book when she was 23. The story takes place in a town much like her own.

Among the characters are a deaf-mute, an African-American doctor, a labor organizer, and a schoolgirl: Mick Kelly. When she hears Beethoven on the radio, she's transfixed. She yearns for more than small town life.

Here's how Southern musician Jim White describes McCullers' writing …

Jim White: Every character seems like an incarnation of her. It was like she needed all those voices -- much like a person writing a symphony needs French horns, tympani, and piccolos.

I assume that Carson McCullers is the girl that wants to go see the snow, and go see the foreign lands, and the music that she imputes on the character Mick is really the elaborate symphony of ideas that she puts in the book.

Jim White, a musician with roots in the South … talking about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

This Literary Moment was created by the National Endowment for the Arts.