The Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus

by Allan Gurganus

  Now, through my office plate-glass, I could see the former site of his Attraction. It was lit tonight, salt-white sand, edges of white breakers endlessly uncoiling. All viewed better thanks to sudden commercial flare from here, me. Burning pink, held up against everything, that one word, a proud three feet high. Too rude a come-on for a lone woman of my age and homeliness. Too hardened an admission, even for Florida, right along U.S. 301, even at 2:18 a.m. And yet, leaning back, breathing for one again, my arms folded over a slack chest, I liked going braless beneath a favorite housecoat worn with only “our” bloomers. Who is this woman hidden back of her neon? Why, it’s Esther the Impenitent. I would be smoking now, if I smoked.

  VACANCY

  Now I knew what it meant.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Allan Gurganus’s books include Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, White People, Plays Well with Others, The Practical Heart, and Local Souls. Gurganus cofounded Writers Against Jesse Helms. He has taught writing and literature at Stanford University, Duke University, Sarah Lawrence, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Film adaptations of his work have won four Emmys. Gurganus has been awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Magazine Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lambda Literary Award. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gurganus’s novel-in-progress is The Erotic History of a Country Baptist Church. He lives in his native North Carolina.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’ve been blessed with many amazing teachers. I owe them everything. Some of these are: Ethel Morris Gurganus (aka “Mother”), Daisy Thorp, Grace Paley, John Cheever, Stanley Elkin, John Irving, John L’Heureux, Paul Nagano, Elizabeth Spencer, Bill Park, James Zito, Paul Taylor, Bessie Schonberg, David Rubin, Danny Kaiser, Connie Brothers, Elisabeth Sifton, Hobson Pittman, Cynthia Thorp, Diane Disney, Catherine Walker, Mildred Teague, Lula Brantley Simmons, Ada Spencer Hobbs, Jackie Cook. And Margaret Lewis, who taught me to read and write.

  I am indebted to my inspiring editor, Bob Weil. Amanda Urban has humanely represented my fiction and me for decades. I thank Chase Culler for tech help and moral support.

  ALSO BY ALLAN GURGANUS

  Decoy: A Novella

  Local Souls

  The Practical Heart: Four Novellas

  Plays Well with Others

  White People

  Blessed Assurance: A Moral Tale

  Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All: A Novel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Allan Gurganus

  All rights reserved

  First Edition

  Earlier versions of some stories have appeared in magazines or as limited edition chapbooks. “My Heart Is a Snake Farm” and “He’s at the Office” and “The Wish for a Good Young Country Doctor” were seen in The New Yorker. Harper’s published “Fourteen Feet of Water in My House.” “The Mortician Confesses” was in Granta. “Fetch” appeared in Tin House. The Virginia Quarterly Review printed “The Deluxe $19.95 Walking Tour of Historic Falls (NC) —Light Lunch Inclusive.” “Unassisted Human Flight” appeared in The Sewanee Review. “A Fool for Christmas” became a limited edition chapbook printed by Horse and Buggy Press in association with the Duke University Libraries, distributed by Duke University Press.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

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  JACKET DESIGN BY JARED ORIEL

  JACKET ILLUSTRATION BY ROGER HAILE

  Book design by Brooke Koven

  Production manager: Anna Oler

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Names: Gurganus, Allan, 1947– author.

  Title: The uncollected stories of Allan Gurganus / Allan Gurganus.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2021]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020029010 | ISBN 9780871403780 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781631498763 (epub)

  Classification: LCC PS3557.U814 A6 2021 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029010

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