The Practical Heart

A luminous quartet, five years in the writing, reveals even more fully the breathtaking range of "a storyteller in the grand tradition" ( New York Times ). Allan Gurganus's voice--by turn bawdy and serene, folkloric and profane--deepens as it soars into this quiet masterwork. Four new fables--rich in event, comedy, experience--surge with the force of history's headlines versus sidestreet human fortitude. Improbable heroes and heroines spiral outward from Gurganus's familiar Carolina terrain. Eac