The Practical Heart: Four Novellas

In his fictional Falls, North Carolinaa watchful zone of stifling moresAllan Gurganuss fond and comical characters risk everything to protect their improbable hopes from prejudice, poverty, betrayal. Seeking warmth and true connection, they shield themselves and loved ones while creating a rarely-glimpsed world of valor, minor grandeur, side-street heroics. Muriel Fraser, a poor Scottish-born spinster, is the subject of a John Singer Sargent portrait in the imagination of her devoted grand-nephew. Tad Worth, a young man dying of AIDS, finds ways to restore vitality to old friends and 18th-century houses. Overnight, one pillar of the community, accused of child molesting, becomes the village pariah. And Clyde Delman, ugliest if kindest man in Falls, finds the love of his eight-year-old son jeopardized when troubling family secrets arise. In each of these splendid complex tales, Allan Gurganus wrings truthssometimes bruising, ofttimes warmingfrom human hearts as immense as they are local.

Author: Allan Gurganus

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

Pages: 336

Publisher: Vintage

Publication Date: 2002-08-27