Song of a Sad Café

Author: McCloskey
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Miss Emily in the small town is capable and wealthy, with "bones and muscles like a man." The local handsome man Marvin Macy falls in love with her and changes his habits to become a respectable person. After secretly loving her for two years, he finally gathers the courage to propose. But their marriage lasts only 10 days—"A groom cannot take his beloved bride to bed." Macy reverts to his old ways and is imprisoned. Miss Emily contentedly enjoys her quiet life until her hunchbacked cousin Lемон comes to the town. She falls in love with him and always accommodates him. Six years later, Macy is granted parole. Lемон, upon seeing him again, tries to curry favor with him, but Macy responds with a punch. The hunchback still goes out daily to find Macy and get into trouble, eventually getting him to stay at their house. The conflict between Miss Emily and Macy finally erupts. They duel in full view of the townspeople, and just as "her strong hands clutch his throat," the hunchback screams and joins the fight, leaving Miss Emily defeated. Of course, after robbing and destroying the café, the hunchback and Macy both leave together. For three consecutive days, Miss Emily sits on the steps in front of the house, gazing out in hope, but the hunchback never returns. In the fourth year, she hires a carpenter to board up all the windows and doors, "and from then on she remained locked in her room." The novel expresses a theme as eternal as love—loneliness—in a mysterious, surreal, and absurd way, using the absurdity of love to prove the inevitability of loneliness.