Local Souls: Novellas - Rilegato

Gurganus, Allan

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 087140379X ISBN 13: 9780871403797

Casa editrice: Liveright Pub Corp, 2013

Riassunto

Through memorable language and bawdy humor, Gurganus returns to his mythological Falls, North Carolina, home of Widow. This first work in a decade offers three novellas mirroring today’s face-lifted South, a zone revolutionized around freer sexuality, looser family ties, and superior telecommunications, yet it celebrates those locals who have chosen to stay local. In doing so, Local Souls uncovers certain old habits—adultery, incest, obsession—still very much alive in our New South, a "Winesburg, Ohio" with high-speed Internet.Wells Tower says of Gurganus, "No living writer knows more about how humans matter to each other." Such ties of love produce hilarious, if wrenching, complications: "Fear Not" gives us a banker's daughter seeking the child she was forced to surrender when barely fifteen, only to find an adult rescuer she might have invented. In "Saints Have Mothers," a beloved high school valedictorian disappears during a trip to Africa, granting her ambitious mother a postponed fame that turns against her. And in a dramatic "Decoy," the doctor-patient friendship between two married men breaks toward desire just as a biblical flood shatters their neighborhood and rearranges their fates.Gurganus finds fresh pathos in ancient tensions: between marriage and Eros, parenthood and personal fulfillment. He writes about erotic hunger and social embarrassment with Twain's knife-edged glee. By loving Falls, Gurganus dramatizes the passing of Hawthorne’s small-town nation into those Twitter-nourished lives we now expect and relish.Four decades ago, John Cheever pronounced Allan Gurganus "the most technically gifted and morally responsive writer of his generation." Local Souls confirms Cheever’s prescient faith. It deepens the luster of Gurganus’s reputation for compassion and laughter. His black comedy leaves us with lasting affection for his characters and the aching aftermath of human consequences. Here is a universal work about a village.

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Product Description

Offering his first book in a decade, Allan Gurganus returns us to Falls, North Carolina, mythic site of his immortal Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. With three linked, darkly funny novellas, Gurganus charts the old habits--adultery, obsession, incest--still at large in his New South, a Winesburg, Ohio with high-speed Internet. In "Fear Not," a banker's daughter seeks the child she forcibly relinquished at birth. In "Saints Have Mothers," the disappearance of a high-school valedictorian shatters the town, creating a cult led by her stricken mother. In "Decoy," the eroticized friendship between two married men is tested at last by a devastating flood. Gurganus finds new pathos in old tensions: between marriage and Eros, with gigantic hopes battling small-town conventions. Told with comic brio and deep sympathy, Local Souls is a universal work about a village. Its black comedy leaves us with affection for its characters and an aching aftermath of human consequences.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Liveright Pub Corp
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 087140379X
• ISBN 13: 9780871403797
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 344