The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

All summer, Mick Kelly is full of the feeling that she is on the verge of some kind of great change. She can’t put her finger on what it is, but she is perpetually excited and ready to face each day. Most mornings she takes Ralph and Bubber out on an aimless walk. As the heat of the afternoon descends upon them, Mick finds a shady place for them to sit or brings them to the library or the New York Café to buy candy. On each outing, every day, Mick’s head is full of music—and each night, after supper, she goes out to wander the streets in search of the sounds of her neighbors’ radios.

One night in August, Mick is hurrying out of the house so that she can make it to a neighbor’s lawn in order to surreptitiously listen to a program on their radio. Mick’s father stops her in the living room and asks to talk to her a while. Mick feels sorry for her dad—after an accident last year, he’s been forced to give up his job as a carpenter and start working as a watch repairman. As Mick waits for her father to say something, a silence descends. She realizes he has nothing to say—he just wants her company. As her father slowly starts talking about the mundanities of his days, Mick wishes she could tell him about her long, hot, joyous nights roaming the streets and listening to the sounds of her neighbors’ radios wafting through the air—but she doesn’t know how. 

Several weeks later, school has started. It is a Saturday afternoon. Mick is giving a prom party at the boarding house later that evening, and she, Bubber, Portia, and Mr. Kelly spend all afternoon cleaning and decorating the place with streamers. Mick has only ever been to a few parties and has never given one herself, but after feeling lonely and out of place during her first few weeks at school, she has decided to bring all her new schoolmates over for a gathering.

Mick is anxious about the party. She fusses with the pictures on the wall in the hallway, rearranges decorations, and begs Portia to reassure her that the party will go off without a hitch. As the afternoon wanes, Mick takes a long bath and begins painstakingly dressing and primping for the evening ahead. By the time she’s ready, she feels “different from the old Mick Kelly”—she believes that tonight is going to be the best night of her life.

Later that night, the party is in full swing. All of Mick’s classmates are laughing and mingling—until the moment she passes out the actual prom cards and encourages them to start pairing up. The girls and boys separate and become nervous—it is as if everyone has forgotten how to talk to one another. Soon, the silence and awkwardness break as a few boys start requesting promenades with the girls.

Amidst all the awkwardness, Mick notices Harry Minowitz, her next-door neighbor and a Jewish boy two years her senior. Harry asks Mick on a promenade and as the two set out for their walk, they begin talking. During a lull in the conversation, Mick begins humming a piece of music. Harry asks her what she’s singing, and she tells him it’s a piece by Mozart. Harry remarks that Mozart is a German name and asks if Mozart is a fascist or a Nazi. Mick replies that Nazis are “new,” while Mozart has been dead a long time. Harry says he hates fascists and longs to kill one. Mick asks why, and Harry asks her to walk around the block again so he can have time to explain. Mick wants to accept the invitation, but as they come up to the house, she sees a commotion on the lawn.

A gang of neighborhood kids has crashed the prom party. There are kids as young as four and as old as thirteen playing on the lawn. Mick orders them all home, but it’s no use—the party is “all messed up.” Even though Mick is angry that kids she didn’t invite have crashed her party, she admits to feeling a kind of excitement at all the fuss. As the kids grow increasingly wild and run through the streets, Mick joins them—but soon trips on her dress, falls, and gets the wind knocked out of her.

Mick returns home, embarrassed by her torn dress. She longs to put her shorts back on, but has a feeling that this is the last night she’ll ever wear shorts—she’s getting too big to dress like a tomboy anymore. Mick orders everyone out, changes back into her shorts, and sets off alone into the street.

Mick walks through the streets aimlessly until she comes to a more upscale neighborhood. She goes into a familiar yard and is pleased to hear that the owners of the nice house have their radio on as usual. Mick sits in the grass, lights a cigarette, and listens. As a Beethoven program comes on, Mick feels the music “boil[ing] inside her.”

As the symphony ends, Mick feels a “terrible hurt” inside of her. She begins punching her legs and scraping her hands with a loose rock. Exhausted, she lies down in the grass. She wishes she could hear the symphony again—if she could just hear it one more time, she believes, she’d be able to memorize it. Mick falls asleep and wakes up in the dewy grass, unsure of what time it is. She hurries home in the dark, noticing that the first whiff of autumn is on the breeze.