Book Reviews
When it comes to love," writes Jeffrey Eugenides in this wonderful, if upsetting, collection of stories, "there are a million theories to explain it. But when it comes to love stories, things are simpler. A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims—these are lucky eventualities but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name".... Though every reader will grouse about overlooked favorites...Eugenides has chosen splendid work.
Michael Dirda - Washington Post
Pulitzer Prize winner Eugenides (Middlesex) has assembled something quite extraordinary here: a fascinating, consistently compelling, and superbly edited collection of short stories about romantic love. Part of the collection's appeal is its range and depth: at 600 pages, it offers gems and new discoveries at every turn. Readers move, for example, from Harold Brodkey's bawdy tribute to young love and orgasm in "Innocence" to Alice Munro's sober study of an aging philanderer's late-blooming love for his ailing wife in "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." There are classic love stories, e.g., James Joyce's "The Dead" and Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog," as well as more experimental, contemporary tales, e.g., Lorrie Moore's self-help-styled "How To Be an Other Woman" and George Saunders's dizzying, futuristic A Clockwork Orange-inflected world of trendsetters and tastemakers in "Jon." Some of the best moments come from younger writers, who somehow manage to match the masters here step for step. An essential acquisition.
Patrick Sullivan - Library Journal
The sparrow in the title of this anthology was one prong of an inconvenient love triangle described by the Latin poet Gaius Catullus in 84 B.C. The pet bird belonged to a girl who was loved by the poet and, unfortunately, her own husband. The sparrow takes the brunt of the lover's displaced jealousy, until it dies, taking his girl's happiness along with it. According to author Jeffrey Eugenides, all love stories since have followed the same template: "there is either a sparrow or the sparrow is dead." Frequently in these 26 stories, that sparrow takes the form of an inconvenient spouse, though it becomes apparent that the sparrow's presence is what makes the song so sweet. William Trevor provides a glimpse of the ordinary happiness that eludes a pair of lovers who take the unorthodox path of making a workaday love out of an illicit one, while Lorrie Moore gives a welcome take from the perspective of the mistress herself ("When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things but essentially it means to put your shoes on the wrong feet"). The selection is well packed with classics—stories from Faulkner, Chekhov, Joyce, Nabokov, and Carver among them—which speaks for Eugenides' comprehensive scope but may feel remedial to some. Contemporary tales by Deborah Eisenberg, Denis Johnson, Miranda July, and others pack more surprise. Though all the entries illuminate the amatory state, none are much of an advertisement for its wholesome pleasures. Warns Eugenides: "Read these love stories in the safety of your own twin bed. Let everyone else suffer. —Amy Benfer
Barnes & Noble Review