I think it is not without importance that the all-night restaurant in Carson McCuller's first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, is called The New York Cafe. In the small-sized Southern city in the late 1930's, when the story takes place, there is little doing at night and none of the people involved in the story is either very contented or very hopeful; the New York Cafe is the only place for them to go, and its forlorn hospitality is indicative of what is barren and joyless about the lives of those who go there. From Columbus, Georgia to New York City is a long way.

Biff Blannon's restaurant is presumably called the New York Cafe because of the ironic contrast between what it is and what its name signifies…. Set in the backwaters of civilization (as Carson McCullers's imagination saw it, anyway), the pathetic name given...