Reading progress update: I've read 62%.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

"During the moonlit January nights Singer continued to walk about the streets of the town each evening when he was not engaged. The rumours about him grew bolder. An old Negro woman told hundreds of people that he knew the ways of spirits come back from the dead. A certain piece-worker claimed that he had worked with the mute at another mill somewhere else in the state – and the tales he told were unique. The rich thought that he was rich and the poor considered him a poor man like themselves. And as there was no way to disprove these rumours they grew marvellous and very real. Each man described the mute as he wished him to be."