She survives, but Bubber is never the same.ĭr. Bubber, Mick’s younger brother, accidentally shoots a little girl in the head.

Biff’s wife dies suddenly, and Jake continues to obsess over the injustices he sees in his society. She starts learning piano and practicing her own music. Mick enters high school and switches her shorts for skirts. His conversations with his new friends are one-way: He misses Spiros because it’s been a long time since John has used sign language to express his own thoughts and feelings. Although John can read their lips and understand their words, he can’t understand why they get so caught up in their ideas. Copeland, Mick, Biff, and Jake continue to visit John. Copeland has driven most of his family away through his strict opinions, Jake struggles to keep his life on the straight and narrow, Biff and his wife live at an emotional distance from one another, Mick feels alone even though she’s surrounded by lots of people, and John misses his friend Spiros.Īs the year goes on, Dr. Copeland on a patient who is deaf.Īll of the characters in this novel are lonely in their own ways. Copeland, connect with John so John can advise Dr. A Black woman named Portia works at the boardinghouse, and she helps her father, Dr. He moves into a local boarding house, where he meets the owner’s 12-year-old daughter, Mick, a courageous and precocious girl.

John’s patience, kindness, and listening ear endear people to him. John starts eating at a local café-bar, where he befriends the owner, Biff, and a new man to town, Jake, who struggles with alcoholism. John Singer, an intelligent and kind man who is deaf, becomes lonely when his only friend, Spiros, who is also deaf, is committed to a psychiatric hospital. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter follows the intertwined stories of five people in a small Southern town. This guide also includes discussions of alcoholism, death by suicide, police brutality, and racism. This guide was written based on the 1st Mariner Books edition of the novel published in 2011.Ĭontent Warning: This guide references vocabulary from the original work relating to disability and race that is considered offensive.

The lonely hunter book