Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
John L'Heureux has spent his long, prolific career exploring questions of morality and faith in stories that entertain, surprise, and sometimes disturb. Entertain because life is short and often disappointing. Surprise because it is in those moments we are most ready to be moved or enlightened. Disturb because fiction can offer a challenge as to how we live our lives. A former Jesuit priest and longtime director of Stanford's creative writing program, L'Heureux writes with wit and elegance, passion and irony about the moments of joy, doubt, transcendence that alter the course of a life: a priest seeking laicization endures endless and absurd questioning; a torturer's assistant justifies his vocation by offering comfort to his patients; and baffled academics wonder about the point of it all. The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast compiles the enduring stories of a distinctive American writer.
Synopsis
A nun crashes her car; an unborn child sings to its mother; a troubled priest is in the market for a London apartment. In The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast, John L'Heureux explores head-on life's biggest questions, and the moments--of joy, doubt, transcendence--that alter the course of life. Compiled as he neared the end of his life, and conceived as the legacy of a life's work, The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast brims with elegance, humor, and compassion, welcoming both the ordinary and the rapturous. L'Heureux is a writer of astonishing vision--a master of storytelling and the sentence.
Synopsis
A sweeping posthumous collection wrestles with faith, irony, and the redemptive nature of love.
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Kirkus A nun crashes her car; an unborn child sings to its mother; a troubled priest is in the market for a London apartment. In The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast, John L'Heureux explores head-on life's biggest questions, and the moments--of joy, doubt, transcendence--that alter the course of life. Compiled as he neared the end of his life, and conceived as the legacy of a life's work, The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast brims with elegance, humor, and compassion, welcoming both the ordinary and the rapturous. L'Heureux is a writer of astonishing vision--a master of storytelling and the sentence.
Synopsis
John L'Heureux spent his long, prolific career exploring questions of morality and faith in stories that entertain, surprise, and sometimes disturb; and The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast compiles the enduring stories of a distinctive American writer. A sweeping posthumous collection wrestles with faith, irony, and the redemptive nature of love.
--Kirkus
A nun crashes her car; an unborn child sings to its mother; a troubled priest is in the market for a London apartment. In The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast, John L'Heureux explores head-on life's biggest questions, and the moments--of joy, doubt, transcendence--that alter the course of life. Compiled as he neared the end of his life, and conceived as the legacy of a life's work, The Heart Is a Full-Wild Beast brims with elegance, humor, and compassion, welcoming both the ordinary and the rapturous. L'Heureux is a writer of astonishing vision--a master of storytelling and the sentence.