Recipient of a Guggenheim, a Lammy, the Sue Kaufman Prize, and an Ingram Merrill award, Allan Gurganus is not a fast or prolific writer. It has been sixteen years since his last book, the rollicking, sad, all-gay New York novel Plays Well with Others
"has never been a modest stylist. He favors, in concert with many of his fellow southerners, vivid language, provocative sentence structure, and metaphors that elevate the reader’s consciousness. He also shares with his southern cohorts a delight in discovering the quotidian within lives led under extraordinary, even bizarre circumstances. In the disturbing “Fear Not,” the male narrator attends the high-school theatrical performance of his teenage godson, accompanied by his godson’s mother. An interesting couple sits near them, and later, armed with the couple’s names, the narrator embarks on learning their story, which involves the many-years-later seeking of a child given up at birth. “Saints Have Mothers” is the slyest of the trio, a sardonic look at celebrity as a girl from Falls becomes famous for having disappeared. “Decoy,” the longest of the three, chronicles the friendship of two men from different sides of town in a meandering tale that eventually sharpens into a moving treatment of social aspiration."
PW said, "In these layered, often funny narratives, close reading is rewarded as Gurganus exposes humanity as a strange species."
In another starred review, Library Journal wrote, "These pieces are so fresh and real that the reader has the sense of walking through a dissolving plate-glass window straight into the lives of the characters. Highly recommended."
Next week through November he is on an extensive reading tour.
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