Local Souls
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Narrated by:
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Allan Gurganus
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By:
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Allan Gurganus
About this listen
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.
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When high-school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed. Miraculously, she survives. But when Caelum and Maureen flee to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family's Connecticut farm, they discover that the effects of chaos are not easily put right.
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excellent all around yarn
- By G. on 01-10-09
By: Wally Lamb
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The Longest Trip Home
- By: John Grogan
- Narrated by: John Grogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the highly anticipated follow-up to Marley & Me, John Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly.
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As real as it gets
- By bclmb on 12-06-08
By: John Grogan
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Liberating Paris
- A Novel
- By: Linda Bloodworth Thomason
- Narrated by: Cynthia Darlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Woodrow McIlmore, the town's golden boy and local gynecologist, is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart, Milan, and seems by all appearances to be leading the perfect life with his two children and extended family and friends. But when Wood's daughter announces that she is smitten with a college classmate and intends to marry him, her parents are stunned.
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Deeply moving, a great listen
- By Cynthia on 11-27-05
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The Admissions
- A Novel
- By: Meg Mitchell Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hawthorne family has it all. Great jobs, a beautiful house in one of the most affluent areas of Northern California, and three charming kids whose sunny futures are all but assured. And then comes their eldest daughter's senior year of high school....
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Anything for success
- By JillHen on 09-13-15
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
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Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
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Too Close to the Falls
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.
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Brilliant and funny and touching.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-07-19
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Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
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This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
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Until I Say Good-Bye
- My Year of Living with Joy
- By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, Bret Witter
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Susan Spencer-Wendel's Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy is a moving and inspirational memoir by a woman who makes the most of her final days after discovering she has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). After Spencer-Wendel, a celebrated journalist at the Palm Beach Post, learns of her diagnosis of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, she embarks on several adventures, traveling to several countries and sharing special experiences with loved ones.
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Until I Say Good-Bye is a paradox for me.
- By Bonny on 03-19-13
By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, and others
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How to Be an American Housewife
- A Novel
- By: Margaret Dilloway
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington, Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.
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big disappointment
- By Kirsten on 04-12-12
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The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
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Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
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Boy, Snow, Bird
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett, Carra Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.
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For Literary Lovers
- By M. Shipe on 04-25-14
By: Helen Oyeyemi
What listeners say about Local Souls
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- drjkauai
- 10-15-23
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.
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- Jeff
- 05-11-16
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.
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- liza mae jane
- 09-20-22
Finely woven stories.
Each one stand-alone credible, engaging, moving. Reading by author enhances the language & substantiates the text. Very (full)filling.
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- Anne
- 01-04-14
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.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Eileen Eberhart
- 06-18-14
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
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- Emeritus
- 10-05-14
a soulthern town then, and now
Would you listen to Local Souls again? Why?
Books narrated by the author are ones to aim for and Gurganus' voice is perfect in its pace, emotion and undersanding of the nuance of his stories. Wonderful.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Will Mabry is a complicated and thooughtful character in "Decoys" and his view of his own life spanning country to city and poor to middle class is really a wonderful and sympathetic portrayal of both. Small towns have been the subject of way too many uninterestng and overwrought novels and stories but Will's voice, through Gurganus, is true and authentic.
What about Allan Gurganus’s performance did you like?
essential to the book
Any additional comments?
If you could get Gurganus to narrate the stories of "White People" it would be wonderful. They are some of the funniest stories I know and his voice would be terrific
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2 people found this helpful
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- Dundas I. Flaherty
- 11-21-13
Off the Map Great
This work has everything. It's stories, two of which are novella-length, set in a small town with characters as real and interesting as you'll ever meet in fiction. It has heart, warmth, intimacy, action, social commentary, and it grabs you and doesn't let go until it's done with you. Gurganus reads undramatically, which fits the work, innately of keen dramatic interest, needing no more from a reader than a caring narration. The writing is simple, elegant, and in places, gorgeous. You get to know the characters so well you want to meet them and talk with them.
This work made me want to read his earlier work, and I'm asking audible to offer his big novel "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All."
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1 person found this helpful
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- Janice M Whalen
- 09-16-14
Just could not get past the first chapter
What disappointed you about Local Souls?
Reader's voice made me sleepy, I wasn't able to sink my teeth into this book. Maybe I should have given it more time but there are so many books and so little time.
What was most disappointing about Allan Gurganus’s story?
The head sliced off was gross.
How could the performance have been better?
Better reader, less prose.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Disappointed that I wasted a credit.
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- BeachGal
- 01-02-18
Maybe better to read this yourself
The narrators voice has little inflection. The story’s premise seemed promising, but I just could not listen to it any longer. Please have someone else narrate this book.
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