“Touching and funny” short fiction about family, estrangement, and dislocation from the award-winning author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway). Featuring “stories about the touchy relationships between parents and children and the necessary pain of letting go—both for parents with children who are becoming adults and for adults whose parents are aging,” this collection showcases the talent, wit, and wisdom that have earned the author of The Fortunes critical acclaim and multiple literary prizes (Library Journal). “With his variety of settings comes a variety of the narrator of ‘Brave Girl,’ trying to help her father navigate the aftermath of divorce; a mathematician in ‘Small World,’ revisiting the scenes of his Irish-Catholic boyhood and his first love; a retired encyclopedia salesman who can’t stop selling himself in ‘Sales’; a junkie trying to regain custody of her son in ‘Everything You Can Remember in 30 Seconds Is Yours to Keep.’ Ho manages to convey all his characters’ predicaments with finesse, and his emotional and geographical range are equally wide.” —Booklist “I read Equal Love with great admiration.” —Penelope Fitzgerald, author of The Bookshop
Peter Ho Davies is a contemporary British writer of Welsh and Chinese descent. He was born and raised in Coventry. Davies studied physics at Manchester University then English at Cambridge University.
In 1992 he moved to the United States as a professor of creative writing. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He has published two collections of short fiction, The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000). His first novel, The Welsh Girl came out in 2007.
Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
Maybe I am just not the short story person. Even though I enjoyed some of the ones in this book, others I just didn't get. And every time that happens I am just not sure if there is a hidden meaning I am just too stupid (or unused to the format) to understand, or if there just is no deeper meaning to it. Sure, all this stories had something to do with Love but since Love is such an ambiguous word, that wasn't hard at all. I don't know. This collection just didn't convince me.
Despite the fact that it's dated in spots - the book is nearly twenty years old - this story collection is a wonderful example of craft as it examines the subtle, irreversible ways that relationships between parents and children change over time and the implications of those changes. It's likely out of print now, but well worth chasing down a copy if you're so inclined.
A collection of stories about families (couples, partners, etc.) in crisis. Tragedies large and small loom from a melancholic mist; these stories are the kind that work best after a glass or two of wine. At times the "message" is a little too heavy-handed, the metaphors a little too obvious. But none of these stories are terrible, and most of them will make you, at the least, sigh deeply. Especially if you take my advice about the wine.
this has one of the best short stories i've ever read about an old couple who believes they've seen and been abducted by aliens. It's sweet and funny, but their interview with the government speaks more about their relationship than their alleged alien abduction. The rest of the collection is fantastic too.
Fine short story collection. My favorite story is about an alien abduction -- but don't be fooled, it's not science fiction fluff. This story, like the other works in this collection, explore the deep human connections we have to the world and to each other.
Perhaps the worst book I've ever read. The stories are simple, cliched, and for the most part, mundane. Sure, "love" can be all these things, but the writing (the stories alone) make it all appear valueless.