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The Mind-Body Problem: Stories of Desire and Love in Academe
Lynn is a Shakespeare scholar, Jennet is a papyrologist, and Andy is an art historian. Each meets an annoying, exasperating, impossible man. Even if he’s undeniably sexy, each woman knows better than to fall for him. Doesn’t she?
The Voynich Affair
Lynn Melton, Chair of the English department, has a longtime interest in a bizarre, undeciphered Renaissance manuscript. When she travels to France for a symposium, she discovers that the manuscript, and one very argumentative man who studies it, are far more mysterious and exciting than she ever imagined.
Sword Dance
Jennet Thorne meets the man of her dreams in Milton scholar and competitive fencer Jonathan Sebelius. There’s only one problem. He’s notorious across campus as a misogynist who wants nothing to do with women. But when he asks her to evaluate a mysterious Greek papyrus he has inherited, sparks begin to fly.
Apollo’s Fire
Andy married her professor, a man thirty years older than she, and as a widow she struggles with panic attacks and bittersweet memories. When old flame Max Desmond shows up to challenge her over an ancient Greek sculpture of Apollo in her collection, she’s outraged. But twenty years later, Max is just as sexy as she remembers…
The Voynich Affair
Lynn Melton, Chair of the English department, has a longtime interest in a bizarre, undeciphered Renaissance manuscript. When she travels to France for a symposium, she discovers that the manuscript, and one very argumentative man who studies it, are far more mysterious and exciting than she ever imagined.
Sword Dance
Jennet Thorne meets the man of her dreams in Milton scholar and competitive fencer Jonathan Sebelius. There’s only one problem. He’s notorious across campus as a misogynist who wants nothing to do with women. But when he asks her to evaluate a mysterious Greek papyrus he has inherited, sparks begin to fly.
Apollo’s Fire
Andy married her professor, a man thirty years older than she, and as a widow she struggles with panic attacks and bittersweet memories. When old flame Max Desmond shows up to challenge her over an ancient Greek sculpture of Apollo in her collection, she’s outraged. But twenty years later, Max is just as sexy as she remembers…
243 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 11, 2012
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June 16, 2017
If you are a fan of Alain de Botton's work, in particular his "Course of Love," Moss is a great choice.
Moss writes sensually--about food, about clothes, about sex--in a way that is sensitive rather than aimed at titillation, and there is a huge difference. These are thoughtful, nuanced, grown up stories about middle-aged couples trying to understand themselves and form relationships with an emphasis on healing.
Moss changed forever how I think about sex in books with a post in her blog in which she writes:
"Authors of “literary fiction” usually avoid writing sex scenes, thereby banishing from the lives of their characters a key aspect of human experience. I suppose one could argue that the mechanics are the same every time, so there is no need to describe it. But that shows a distinct lack of imagination, does it not? If there is something to be learned about the characters by looking in more detail at their sexual selves, it seems to me that to drop a veil of discretion over a sex scene (“Afterwards…”) is a failure of nerve. People vary greatly with regard to their physical, emotional, and moral responses as sexual beings. Admittedly, in many stories this information may be irrelevant. But if the story deals with the mystery of two people’s attraction to each other, it is (or can be) a key to character."
I haven't been in academia for years, but it still feels like home to me, and Moss captures it perfectly in her three stories set in her made up Parnell State University. One of the things that's fun about Moss is that her Parnell State U. characters weave in and out of each other's stories.
Moss writes sensually--about food, about clothes, about sex--in a way that is sensitive rather than aimed at titillation, and there is a huge difference. These are thoughtful, nuanced, grown up stories about middle-aged couples trying to understand themselves and form relationships with an emphasis on healing.
Moss changed forever how I think about sex in books with a post in her blog in which she writes:
"Authors of “literary fiction” usually avoid writing sex scenes, thereby banishing from the lives of their characters a key aspect of human experience. I suppose one could argue that the mechanics are the same every time, so there is no need to describe it. But that shows a distinct lack of imagination, does it not? If there is something to be learned about the characters by looking in more detail at their sexual selves, it seems to me that to drop a veil of discretion over a sex scene (“Afterwards…”) is a failure of nerve. People vary greatly with regard to their physical, emotional, and moral responses as sexual beings. Admittedly, in many stories this information may be irrelevant. But if the story deals with the mystery of two people’s attraction to each other, it is (or can be) a key to character."
I haven't been in academia for years, but it still feels like home to me, and Moss captures it perfectly in her three stories set in her made up Parnell State University. One of the things that's fun about Moss is that her Parnell State U. characters weave in and out of each other's stories.
Displaying 1 of 1 review