A powerful, moving collection of stories from one of the masters of American drama, A Primitive Heart is a powerful, heart-rending, and completely authentic collection of stories that cut to the quick of American manhood and reveal the distance within the most intimate relationships. A Primitive Heart shows David Rabe to be a fiction writer of range and versatility. Whether he is writing about a marriage shadowed by the unacknowledged discord of a risky pregnancy, a group of men whose attempt to settle an account launches them toward unexpected violence, or a young journalist who believes he's escaped his Catholic roots, only to be forced to confront them by a priest who once mentored his writing, Rabe's muscular voice, singular gift for dialogue, sly wit, and fearlessness in depicting the savage side of humanity, tenders an inimitable portrait of America and offers benedictions to her lost souls. A Primitive Heart confirms the mastery of David Rabe's writing and establishes him as an exciting voice in fiction.