Thanks to everyone who took part in our China Miéville discussion last month. I hope Miévilleheads and Miéville newbies alike enjoyed. It was a discussion so meaningful to me that to simply "move on" to the "next pick" felt inappropriate. And antithetical, frankly, to DRAB's mission of deep, considered literary study. It is for this reason that today's DRAB announcement comes to you a little later than usual. I didn't "keep forgetting to write this post" or anything like that. This April we'll be reading Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940, when she was an infuriating 23 years old.
The novel, a Southern gothic classic, centers the lives of outcasts in a Georgia mill town. Richard Wright once praised the novel's tenderness. "Her quality of despair is unique and individual; and it seems to me more natural and authentic than that of Faulkner," he wrote.
To join us, go to your local library, independent bookstore, or Bookshop.org (where you’ll also find a list of previous Defector Reads A Book selections and some other staff favorites). Then meet here on Thursday, April 27 to discuss. We’ll make sure to send out a reminder in The Cipher, the daily newsletter that goes out to all Pal-and-up subscribers. Happy reading!
