Newspapers / North Carolina Wesleyan University … / Nov. 12, 1993, edition 1 / Page 3
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NOVEMBER 12,1993 — THE DECREE — PAGE 3 Gurganus to return for fundraiser WRITER RETURNS — Popular writer Allan Gurganus, here signing books on a previous Wesleyan visit, will return to Wes leyan College and his native Rocky Mount for a fundraising reading on Nov. 19. Rocky Mount native -Allan Gurganus considers himself the luckiest person in the world. He once described that person as “a noveUst who is bom into a small, shabby-genteel town on a major railway connection with 24,000 souls and a bird sanctuary and whose grandfather owns a farm and whose father owns a business — whose family is mildly prosperous but not rich, which means you can leave the town.” He’ll be back in Rocky Mount on Friday, Nov. 19, to participate in an evening fundraiser at North Carolina Wesleyan College. Gurganus will read from The Practical Heart, a newBovella to be pubUshed by NCWC Press, at a reception honoring Daisy Thorp, retired Wesleyan'art instructor. Specifically, the funds will con tribute to the creation of an Out sider Art Gallery in the new fine arts complex. According to Wesleyan Presi dent Dr. Leslie H. Gamer, Jr., “There is no more fitting way to honor Daisy’s contribution to our students, colleagues, and commu nity than in the creation of a gal lery that will give us space to display and study a fine collec tion that, without Daisy, might not have come to Wesleyan.” Tickets for this event are $ 150; more information can be obtained from Sylvia Parker at 985-5110. Every donor of $150 will receive an inscribed copy of The Practi cal Heart. " Friday afternc©n,'*ffom 3-5 p.m., Gurganus will be inscrib ing copies oiThe Practical Heart at the Book Shoppe in Englewood Square. The Practical Heart is a work in two parts. Part one appeared this past summery a Harper’s Magazine folio, receiving wide acclaim. Complicating that ac count of one family member’s quest to be painted by John Singer Sargent, Gurganus added a retell ing of his actual relation’s more unvarnished misadventures. The result is an ambitious, immensely readable meditation on history it self — history as family history. The Practical Heart is to be published in a handsome letter press edition printed by Heritage Printers in Charlotte and designed by Peter Andersen of Alfred A. Knopf. It is limited.to 1,000 cop ies, each numbered and signed by the author, featuring family photographs of the principals, in cluding Singer Sargent The com-- pjete novella will appear in Gurganus’ forthcoming collection of novellas, Amgels Are Among Us, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1994. Of The Practical Heart, Gurganus said, “In 1888, my mother’s grandfather moved fiom Scotland to Chicago in search of the Wild West He brought along his wife and children. On the eve of their return to Scotland, after a rough stay in what was then a very wild town, my great-grand- mother was stmck by a runaway streetcar. This rendered her an in valid for life. “In this way, I became an American, not a Scot,” he said. “Cut off from the homeplace and the pleasures of their comfortable former life, this little band ad^ted in ways both natural and gro tesque. Their lives are changed forever by this single mishap. The Practical Heart is my tribute to them across the boundaries of time and facts. It is intended as a gift to my dead.” ^ GurganiKsaid'heftppreciates the way North Carolina Wesleyan College Press treats his works. “One of the many reasons I love doing chapbooks with the North Carolina Wesleyan College Press is how Terry Smith allows me to shape every detail of the book,” he said. “Most writers have no hand in how thek works appear, and both book and author suffer as a result “Peter A. Andersen, who su pervises my works for Knopf, de signed the new work. He is a bril liant artist” Gurganus added. “On The Practical Heart’s cover, we use my Fraser family’s tartan plaid; we show the jackets of the very cowboy novels that brought my professor great-granddad to America in the first place. “A writer cares as much how his book appears as any mother worries how her children look on their day of First Communion,” Gurganus said. “Publishing with NCWCP is one way I remain close to Rocky Mount — the source of so much of my outlook, ethos, and enefgyv>’'‘ • “The ongoing health of the College remains the traest gauge of Rocky Mount’s continuing en ergy and imagination,” he said. “Both seem to be thriving. It’s a joy to feel connected to both.” Gurganus’ woiks have been discovered by the movie indus try. CBS is now shooting his 1989 best-selling first novel. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, at ante-beUum plantations and a small town in Georgia. The cast includes Donald Sutherland as Captain Marsden, Ann Bancroft as Lucy old, Diane Lane as Lucy young, Blythe Danner as Lucy’s mother, E.G. Marshall as Cap tain Taw, Gwen Veradon as Lucy’s friend, and Cecily Tyson as the widow’s best friend, the freed slave Castalia. Gurganus will appear as a con ference officer with two lines of dialogue. “But I wrote them,” he said, “and they’re spoken from a fine horse while I wear an au thentic uniform.” Joanne Woodward has just optioned his story from his sec ond book, the collection of sto ries and novellas. White People. The tale, “Nativity, Caucasian,” chronicles the birth of a baby at a bridge party. Woodward intends to act in and direct the project for the Arts and Entertainment net work. “I feel sure that Woodward wiU get all the cloisonn6 ashtrays absolutely right,” Gurganus re marked. “She’s from a good Southem family, after all.” Finally, The Practical Heart is being developed as a feature film by Paramount’s Mirage Pic tures — produced by Sidney Pollack’s company, with the original treatment by Gurganus himself. Gurganus’ first two books have been greeted with both prizes and praises, among them the Sue Kaufman Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the best first work of fiction in 1989, the 1991 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fic tion, and the Southem Book Award in the fiction category pre sented by the Southem Book Crit ics Circle. Of Confederate Widow, Kiikus Reviews called it “a modernist version of Gone With The Wind,” Its author thought of it as “a cel ebration of the durability of the self.” No less a critic than Har vard University’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr. said of White People - th^- it “collets- short stories £aid novellas Gurganus has published over the past two decades, and they suggest that he can do pretty much whatever he sets out to do as a writer.” Underlying all of Gurganus’ fiction is a fundamentally moral vision of human life. “Our times are amoral,” he said. “In recent years we have tirnied away from a sense that we are all respon sible for each other. But I believe we are. TTiat moral frame, which is visible in novels, shows how the deeds of one member of a community have a continuing impact on the lives of other mem bers. This moral vision has been out of fashion for a long time, but it is essential.” NCWC Press Director Dr. Leverett T. Smith is enthusiastic about the Press’ association with Gurganus and The Practical Heart. “It’s really wonderful to be able to publish something by a local auAor who’s also both na tionally known and a distin guished writer,” he said. “Our as sociation wdth him is really the basis on which we’ve built the Press.” In 1988, the NCWC P^s pub lished as it second book Gurganus’ Good Help, a chapter from Cortfederate Widow. This was followed in 1990 by Blessed Assurance, a limited chapbook of the concluding novella from White People. Though Good Help is long out of print, copies of Blessed Assurance are still avail able for $20. Gurganus does mcHe than write fiction. His essays have appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times and in Granta. His political commentaries have aired on PBS’ “MacNeil/LehrCT News Hour” and CBS’ “America To night” He is the recipient of two grants from the National Endow ment for the Arts, an Ingram Merrill Grant a Danforth Schol arship, and Stanford’s Wallace- StegnCT Fellowship. Gurganus attended the public schools in Rocky Mount and was vice president of the high school student body in 1965. Thereafter he served on the USS Yorktown during the Vietnam War and was educated at Sarah Lawrence Col? lege and the Iowa Writers’ Work shop. He has taught at Duke, Stan ford, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College. He lives in Chapel Hill and New ; York: City.' , • ■ v • ■ :
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