GENERAL & LITERARY FICTION. In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column which is seen by the newspaper staff as a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of his feature editor at the newspaper, "Shrike". Miss Lonelyhearts tries several approaches to escape the terribly painful letters he has to read through religion, trips to the countryside with his fiancee Betty, and sex with Shrike's wife and Mrs. Doyle, a reader of his column. However, Miss Lonelyhearts' efforts do not seem to ameliorate his situation. After his sexual encounter with Mrs. Doyle, he meets her husband, a poor crippled man.