Welcome to Litsy!

One of �the best writers of our time� (Ann Patchett) offers this hilarious yet haunting cycle of stories�all previously uncollected. Since the explosive publication of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, Allan Gurganus has dazzled readers as �the most technically gifted and morally responsive writer of his generation� (John Cheever). He has been praised as "one of America�s preeminent novelists, our prime conductor of electric sentences" (William Giraldi). Above all, Allan Gurganus is a seriously funny writer, an expert at evoking humor, especially in our troubled times. Now he offers nine classic tales�never before between covers. They attest to his mastery of the short story and the growing depth of his genius.? Offering characters antic and tragic, Gurganus charts the human condition�masked and unmasked�as we live it now. �Once upon a time� collides with the everyday. We meet a mortician whose dedication to his departed clients exceeds all legal limits. We encounter a seaside couple fighting to save their family dog from Maine�s fierce undertow. A virginal seventy-eight-year-old grammar school librarian has her sole erotic experience with a polyamorous snake farmer. A vicious tornado sends twin boys aloft, leaving only one of them alive. And, in an eerily prescient story, cholera strikes a rural village in 1849 and citizens come to blame their doomed young doctor who saved hundreds. These meticulously crafted parables recall William Faulkner�s scope and Flannery O�Connor�s corrosive wit. Imbuing each story with charged drama, Gurganus, a sublime ventriloquist, again proves himself among our funniest writers and our wisest.