In outcome and in mood, [Carson McCullers'] The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and [Jessamyn West's] Cress Delehanty are opposite, yet the two represent different faces of the same coin. Cress is merely Mick Kelly … in happier surroundings, and Cress's story describes the achievement of love where Mick's described the failure of love. Both heroines attain maturity, though in different ways.—If the story of tragedy is necessarily greater than the story of happiness, then The Heart … is the better book…. But to tell the story of a normal and successful heroine effectively may be more difficult, and represent a greater achievement, than to tell a tragic story. Cress is the typical adolescent American girl, and Jessamyn West has achieved the rare distinction of portraying her normal, middle-class American characters with complete success.

The quality which distinguishes Cress Delehanty, as well as Jessamyn West's other adolescent protagonists in...