The Ballad of the Sad Café

For those readers who are "millennials" and haven't found Southern Authors from the 60's and 70's, you would do yourself a big favor and pick up a few of Carson McCullers Gems. Her biggest seller, probably, was "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". But this book also was a big hit - creating a microcosm of a small café/bar during WWII, which characters from all walks of life coming in to leave their impressions. Ms. McCullers... Read Full Review

This is a limpid, beautiful story, wonderfully told. The whole setting exemplifies Southern Gothic from the word go: "The town itself is dreary; not much is there except the cotton-mill, the two-room houses where the workers live, a few peach trees, a church with two coloured windows, and a miserable main street only a hundred yards long."I was hooked by the beginning, evoking dilapidation, isolation, heat, distress and... Read Full Review

The brilliance of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe lies in the fact that it teaches us how to identify ourselves. The crux of the story seems to rest on what may be called an explicit explanation of the lover and the beloved. It's a critical distinction that most do not make; and may well explain why so many human relationships fail. McCullers writes: "First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons--but the fact... Read Full Review

Carson McCullers is a wonderfully compassionate author and this novel showcases the best of her abilities.

McCullers' captures the essence and delicacies of love in "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe." Three highly unusual lovers attempt to understand their feelings and desires. Each lover becomes a beloved and nothing seems to work positively. But look more closely: The real lover is the unidentified narrator, who painfully (as experienced by a lover) tells the story. The other stories included in the book magnify and enhance McCullers'... Read Full Review