Local Souls

By: Allan Gurganus

Narrated by: Allan Gurganus

With the meteoric success of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, Allan Gurganus placed himself among America’s most original and emotionally engaged storytellers. If his first comic novel mapped the late nineteenth-century South, Local Souls brings the twisted hilarity of Flannery O’Connor kicking into our new century.

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.

©2013 Allan Gurganus (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Another fabulous collection by Allan Gurganus!

Would you consider the audio edition of Local Souls to be better than the print version?

Audio works better for me since I'm always on the go in my vehicles. By the time I get home at night, my tired eyes simply won't cooperate.

What did you like best about this story?

Everything.

Which scene was your favorite?

Can't remember.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It stretched out over a road trip.

Any additional comments?

Allan Gurganus is simply a gorgeous writer and narrator. I wouldn't want to listen to any one else reading his prose. More than likely my favorite author of all time.

Finely woven stories.

Each one stand-alone credible, engaging, moving. Reading by author enhances the language & substantiates the text. Very (full)filling.

A Rare Gift

Allan Gurganus offers listeners the rare gift of a beautifully crafted piece of fiction and a reading that displays its every nuance. I loved every minute of it and find myself thinking of the book and hearing his voice long after I've finished. The warm and humor of his work, both the writing and the reading, could seem "folksy," but it's deeper than that, and the insights seem more hard won. It left me with a feeling of gratitude that we have this guy around.

This is a perfect book

I didn’t realize until the end that the author was the narrator. Only he could speak the words as beautifully as they were spoken. The subtleties of his language and brilliance of the stories will be with me for a very long time.

Loved this!

Where does Local Souls rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Within top 10

What did you like best about this story?

Fascinating descriptions of characters

What about Allan Gurganus’s performance did you like?

Pauses, inflections, pace of delivery

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No - too much to take in