How to Stop Loving Someone

by Joan Connor

Winner of the 2010 Leapfrog Fiction Contest.

"Excellent and lively. A sharp wit, the apt metaphor, the turn of phrase that pleases and surprises."—Marge Piercy, contest judge

"Bright, brassy, spunky, intelligent. Ingenious writing. . . . Quirky and filled with metaphoric twists that often startle."—Michael Mirolla, contest judge

"Smart, funny, biting, and, above all, touching. A collection to savor over and over."—Michael White, author of Beautiful Assassin

Praise for Joan Connor's previous collections:

"Brilliantly quirky wit and wordplay."—Syndey Lea, author of A Little Wilderness

"A deeply talented writer."—Alyce Miller, author of Water

"Candor, bracing wit, and skewering insight that could kill if she let it."—Rosellen Brown, author of Half a Heart

Joan Connor's collection investigates love and loss, sex, family, and the ways they echo back through memory, sometimes to comfort and sometimes to bite. Some comic, some dark, the stories range from lyrical to laugh-out-loud funny. The title story is a mock self-help manual on how to fall out of love. "Men in Brown" is a rollicking account of a woman infatuated with her UPS man. "Aground" is a dark account of male lust and violence on a lonely island in Maine.

Joan Connor is a professor at Ohio University and at Fairfield University's low residency MFA program. She received the AWP award for her collection History Lessons, and the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize for The World Before Mirrors. Her two earlier collections are We Who Live Apart and Here on Old Route 7.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2011

About the author

Joan Connor is the author of Here on Old Route 7 and We Who Live Apart. She is associate professor of English at Ohio University and a member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine's low residency MFA program.

Reviews

[Natalia Sylvester · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this collection of short stories by accident at the library and bought a copy as soon as I finished reading because I kept wanting to highlight certain lines or dog-ear certain pages. I don't know how else to describe it but to say it was VIVID. The characters, their longing, the heart-breaking places in their lives they find themselves in--I haven't been able to stop thinking about them. Connor's prose is awe-inspiring, not just at a sentence level but in the way her story arcs take the most surprising, yet masterful turns to arrive at a point that's beautifully executed. She's witty as hell in one moment and stunningly lyrical in the next. Many times I found myself having to stop before reading the next story because the one I'd just finished left me with so much to think about--I wanted to take it all in.

Also, these days I mostly read novels, but reading this has helped reignite my interest in short stories. I've often thought of novels as old friends; by the time you finish one, you feel like you've known the characters your whole life, and it almost hurts to part ways. But these short stories are like a quick encounter with a stranger who says or does something that speaks to a place deep inside of you; brief yet unforgettable.

[Kelly Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who has needed to know how to stop loving someone. I mean, REALLY. This short story collection will do more for you than any self-help book, including Lorrie Moore's Self Help. Connor's wry insights into love and loss are dead on. And hilarious. Do not read in public at the coffee shop because you just might snort your latte. (I find the reverse snort to be especially unpleasant). The prose is edgy and moves. I've found myself picking up this collection for a little burst between other tasks and feel injected with energy by the end. More important is that I also emerge with a line or observation to gnaw upon.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Spectrum of Love and other Fantasies

Joan Connor has a style of writing that is so fine that she makes turning a page to proceed with her next idea a reluctant decision: in other words, her gift for sculpting words is so terse and imaginative that the reader wants to memorize as much of each page as possible, lest the next page might overshadow the current one. Connor writes equally well about the foibles each of us own, the ridiculous situations that can arise in just ploughing through life, the stammering search for the right words at the right time which so often backfires into a shattering and degrading sense of inadequacy - in other words, about humor - as well as she writes about those tender moments of living in response to bruises or unfulfilled dreams or regretting errors of commission as well as omission. Finishing this richly entertaining book of short stories increase the hunger-for-more quotient - or, we always have the option to just go back to the beginning and realize how much detail we missed trying to memorize favorite passages.

Connor has created a mental script in the title story 'How to Stop Loving Someone' that could be taken as a diatribe against men - or as a rapidly absorbed synaptic configuration of what makes people attract and step close to relating, just missing the threshold. It is funny and enlightening. Obsession is a key ingredient in Connor's 'Men in Brown' as she describes her subscription to book clubs and to other items available from shipping houses just so that she can interact or at least spy on the UPS delivery guy, and as usual she knows how to throw a punch at the end that wallops the reader with an unexpected twist. She outlines and copes with guilt in 'The Writing on the Wall', the fragility of casual meetings that lead to email romances and the fallouts of same in 'What It Is', or the strangely injured woman who walks the story of 'Tide Walk'.

No matter the arena of private thoughts that appeal to every reader (or at least lead us to search for stories that will play out those moments from someone else's experiences) they are all (or mostly all) here. Joan Connor knows how to plumb our minds and our hearts and leaves us reconcile to the concept that we don't travel this life alone: someone else has likely been there before - and made it. Highly recommended.

Grady Harp

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give a couple of the stories five stars--and at least one or two of them two stars. And that's always the problem with a collection of short stories. Some are almost always better than others--funnier, sharper, a better point or moral, or just more engaging.

A couple of the stories feel overwritten to me--like Connor is just stretching her writer muscles and goes too far down the clever path. A couple times, I found myself skimming to see what happens--or skipping a story after the first pages were unsatisfying.

I've never read anything else by Joan Connor. I'd certainly be willing to try again...

[CBSD Library]

Check out a free preview of a story from How to Stop Loving Someone in our Bookslinger app!

[Jenni Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous stories. There's always a fun wit beneath the tale, crisp and lovely language, and so many incisive portraits of love and loneliness. My favorites: "Aground," "Halfbaby," and "What It Is."

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

this style of writing just isn't up my alley. everything felt overwrought. glad I tried it though.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I expected. Some of the stories were too esoteric for me...others very touching. I think the author has alot to say...would like to read a novel penned by this author.

[Lori]

from publisher

[Heather]

The writing is excellent, but I just don't like short stories.