A book of wicked wit, Miss Lonelyhearts is the saga of a young (male) newspaper advice columnist who grows despondent reading the piles of letters from the broken and the confused. Miss Lonelyhearts takes to sickness for relief until his gruff editor, Shrike, tells him to get over it and turn to Christ, "the Miss Lonelyhearts of Miss Lonelyhearts." This advice propels Miss Lonelyhearts into a period of soul-searching that sends him to both the church and the bottle. He stumbles through a series of misadventures, cascading the novel humorously and tragically along to a surprising end.