Set during the turmoil of World War II, Purple Hearts is the story 
of the epileptic scion of an East Texas timber and oil fortune 
and his marriage to a stunning stranger desperate for sanctuary. 
Though naive and virginal, thirty-year-old Georgie Karacek wins 
Sylvia through his charm and kindness. Longing to prove himself, 
he then hides his illness to join the army. Sylvia's relationship with 
Georgie's overprotective mother proves difficult, so to make ends 
meet she takes on a boarder, Robert, in Georgie's absence. Soon 
Robert and Sylvia grow close, and he presses her to run away with 
him.

    When Georgie's epilepsy comes to light, he is discharged, and on 
returning home he suspects that his bride and the boarder are lovers. 
But wartime conditions explode into rioting, and that uproar puts 
them at odds with the town when Georgie helps a black friend flee.

    Purple Hearts is based loosely on events in Beaumont, Texas, 
in July of 1943, when shipyard workers rampaged following a 
rumor that a black man had raped a sailor's wife. Several people died 
and scores were injured, and that riot echoed those in Detroit, 
Chicago, and Los Angeles. Writer/critic Bryan Woolley has hailed 
Purple Hearts as "the best novel I've read about the home front 
during World War II. . . . [it] illumines the dark fact that there was 
more to that home scene than Rosie the Riveter and War Bond drives."

_________________________________________________________

C. W. SMITH has twice won the Jesse Jones "Best Novel" Award 
from the Texas Institute of Letters and has held two NEA Creative 
Writing Fellowships and a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship at the 
University of Texas. Purple Hearts is his eighth novel. He is a 
Dedman Family Distinguished Professor at Southern Methodist 
University. He lives in Dallas.



What people are saying about this book

"C. W. Smith's finest work."—Jane Roberts Wood

"[Purple Hearts has] got great sweep and authority, a compelling 
story, and characters that I'm really interested and invested in."
—Stephen Harrigan, author of Gates of the Alamo


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