The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Biff Brannon is the kind, thoughtful, deeply existential owner of the New York Café—an all-day, all-night restaurant and bar on the main street of the unnamed mill town in which the novel takes place. Biff Brannon has a self-proclaimed fondness for “freaks” and misfits, and, early on in the book, shelters Jake Blount at the café and lets him drink on credit. Biff believes the best in people even as he himself struggles with dark, obsessive feelings and a punishing sense of guilt—emotions that intensify after the sudden, unexpected death of his wife, Alice. Biff and Alice have never had children, and though Biff longs to be a father, his desire to care for children sometimes veers into the desire simply to possess children. As John Singer, Jake Blount, and Mick Kelly all begin spending more time at the café, Blount finds himself drawn to Singer, and often visits the man in his room at the Kellys’ boarding house. Biff is one of Singer’s only visitors who ever asks Singer any questions about himself, his past, or his thoughts. Even as Biff bonds with Singer, he finds himself longing to get closer to Mick and to his niece Baby—but he detects something “wrong” in these feelings, and worries that his preoccupation with the young girls is inappropriate. Biff frequently wonders about the purpose of life, the limits of human connection, and the struggle between good and evil. He is a very contemplative person, and yet is never quite able to find the answers to the existential questions he poses himself. Toward the end of the novel, Biff has a short, fleeting moment of transcendence, and believes he has come to understand the purpose of “human struggle” and the nature of time itself—but the moment is gone just as quickly as it came, and Biff is left alone and wondering again.