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.

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.