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We So Seldom Look On Love
From the author of the blockbuster Mister Sandman comes a gathering of unusual characters captured in the outrageous and humorous situations for which Barbara Gowdy has become famous. Teasing the taboos, Gowdy creates a marriage dialogue between a woman and her transsexual fiancé, who she thought was a man, and litigation between Samuel and Simon who share the same two-headed body. She peoples her stories with Siamese twins, a necrophile, and a pathetically lonely exhibitionist. And she brilliantly illustrates how uncomfortably close a connection comedy has to human suffering. The title story has been adapted into a movie called "Kissed.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
15 people are currently reading
1804 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Gowdy
24 books243 followersBarbara Gowdy is the author of seven books, including Helpless, The Romantic, The White Bone, Mister Sandman, We So Seldom Look on Love and Falling Angels, all of which have met with widespread international acclaim. A three-time finalist for The Governor General’s Award, two-time finalist for The Scotia Bank Giller Prize, The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, winner of the Marian Engel Award and The Trillium Book Prize, Gowdy has been longlisted for The Man Booker Prize. She has been called “a miraculous writer” by the Chicago Tribune, and in 2005 Harper’s magazine described her as a “terrific literary realist” who has “refused to subscribe to worn-out techniques and storytelling methods.” Born in Windsor, Ontario, she lives in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
December 30, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed this one.Gowdy has a beautiful writing style. Not all these stories are about love but they all display unusual human relationships with some "unusual" people. There's a story about a woman learning that her husband was actually born a woman, a story about a man with two heads who tries to murder his other head,another about a female exhibitionist, and another about a girl who has toddler-sized legs on her torso (her Siamese twin). I thoroughly enjoyed reading these short stories. They were very quirky with some humour thrown in.I should add: the title story, We Seldom Look on Love, deals with necrophilia. It was a very shocking and explicit story, though written very well.
March 31, 2012
I first read this book many, many moons ago. It is the book that I've always pointed to when justifying my opinion that Barbara Gowdy "always" writes about unusual, weird characters. I've read many of Gowdy's books since, including Mister Sandman, The White Bone and Helpless. All of those have served to confirm my original opinion. So you'd think I would have been more than prepared for a second foray into Gowdy's macabre territory in this book of stories.
Wrong. Even on a second reading, I was totally unsettled by these stories. These are not stories to gulp down in one sitting. Indeed, I had to put the book down and do some "normal person" things in the middle of reading "The Two-headed Man". I almost had to do the same with the title story, "We So Seldom Look on Love" about a female necrophile, so repulsed was I, except that at the same time I was entirely fascinated.
If you met any of Gowdy's characters on the street - add to the foregoing a girl with a huge head, an exhibitionist, a conjoined twin and others - you'd likely politely/uncomfortably look away. But Gowdy does not let you do this. She forces you to look and then tenderly and humorously makes them human for you as if they were your next-door neighbour or, even, you.
Wrong. Even on a second reading, I was totally unsettled by these stories. These are not stories to gulp down in one sitting. Indeed, I had to put the book down and do some "normal person" things in the middle of reading "The Two-headed Man". I almost had to do the same with the title story, "We So Seldom Look on Love" about a female necrophile, so repulsed was I, except that at the same time I was entirely fascinated.
If you met any of Gowdy's characters on the street - add to the foregoing a girl with a huge head, an exhibitionist, a conjoined twin and others - you'd likely politely/uncomfortably look away. But Gowdy does not let you do this. She forces you to look and then tenderly and humorously makes them human for you as if they were your next-door neighbour or, even, you.
September 15, 2025
These are all stories about misfits, written beautifully and with compassion. I liked them even more than I did the first time.
February 17, 2019
This was a tedious reminder of how much I hate modernist writing. RTC.
October 27, 2021
I recently read Sweet Tooth, which made me remember this short story I first read about 25 years ago - since both deal with the somewhat distasteful subject of necrophilia. The story was also the basis for a 1996 film called 'Kissed', starring Molly Parker that was ... intriguing. The true subject is really obsession and thwarted love, though, and Gowdy has created a disturbing little gem that is still well worth seeking out.
May 29, 2017
Wow. Wow. Wow.
See, THIS is why I have terminal writer's block. You read something by Barbara Gowdy and you realize you are completely inferior and nothing you do will ever make you better enough.
These are short stories, horrifying short stories, prizewinners all. They are all about people who have an oddness about them - a conjoined twin bit attached, an extra big head, deformities of all kinds and degrees of hardships.
And I love every one of the characters. I bleed for them. The poor girl whose mother loved the legs of her twin better than she loved the whole girl, the girl whose friend has a purple suitcase by the door in case of an event...
Gowdy is so good at telling these stories that they didn't feel prurient, even though some of the people in them had non-benign interest in the characters.
Read it. Buy it for your bookshelf. And whenever you feel like sitting down and writing a book, reread it, and then go have some wine.
See, THIS is why I have terminal writer's block. You read something by Barbara Gowdy and you realize you are completely inferior and nothing you do will ever make you better enough.
These are short stories, horrifying short stories, prizewinners all. They are all about people who have an oddness about them - a conjoined twin bit attached, an extra big head, deformities of all kinds and degrees of hardships.
And I love every one of the characters. I bleed for them. The poor girl whose mother loved the legs of her twin better than she loved the whole girl, the girl whose friend has a purple suitcase by the door in case of an event...
Gowdy is so good at telling these stories that they didn't feel prurient, even though some of the people in them had non-benign interest in the characters.
Read it. Buy it for your bookshelf. And whenever you feel like sitting down and writing a book, reread it, and then go have some wine.
January 19, 2008
We So Seldom Look On Love, Barbara Gowdy's first published book, is a compilation of short stories. Like her novels, we see her championing the misfits and outcasts and explore their worlds in an honest and sympathetic fashion. Regardless of how outlandish her protags appear to be (...a woman exhibitionist, a two-headed man, a girl with her dead Siamese twin's trunk growing from her hip, a woman who literally embraces death...), her stories come off as compassionate and true.
This book is one the few short story collections I plan on rereading, in order to check out how the author pulls off these wonderful stories, and to revisit her intriguing characters. It's a great read.
This book is one the few short story collections I plan on rereading, in order to check out how the author pulls off these wonderful stories, and to revisit her intriguing characters. It's a great read.
November 18, 2013
Terrific writer. I especially loved the story about the female necrophile, which was a tender, heartbreaking love story. When folks ask me if there's anything I won't write about, I think of this story, because Gowdy has proven that a good writer can write about anything.
November 9, 2020
Despite the fanciful, romantic title, this is not a dainty book about love. It has more in common with Kafka's Metamorphosis than the Notebook: family, shame, body horror galore.
It ranges from dirty smut (but somehow, not the fun kind...) to the positively grotesque. Like, have you ever seen the very first episode of Black Mirror? ... Yeah... yeah, it's that feeling.
3 stars, because while it was well-written and imaginative, I didn't really connect to anything, I'm not sure what I got out of it, and it was just plain depressing. (And to be clear, I just got done reading Hubert Selby's The Demon, which is about a man's slow descent into madness and compulsive murder, so for me to say this was uncomfortable, I mean it).
Hope you enjoy necrophilia in great detail xx
It ranges from dirty smut (but somehow, not the fun kind...) to the positively grotesque. Like, have you ever seen the very first episode of Black Mirror? ... Yeah... yeah, it's that feeling.
3 stars, because while it was well-written and imaginative, I didn't really connect to anything, I'm not sure what I got out of it, and it was just plain depressing. (And to be clear, I just got done reading Hubert Selby's The Demon, which is about a man's slow descent into madness and compulsive murder, so for me to say this was uncomfortable, I mean it).
Hope you enjoy necrophilia in great detail xx
July 25, 2010
There are fantastic stories in here like the beautiful necrophiliac or the two headed man personifying good and evil, but my favorite story was the one about the foster children. Gowdy told the story in a beautiful and loving way that made it far more arresting then other pieces I've read like it in which the authors try to be shocking.
August 12, 2013
This is a rather bizarre collection of short stories. I wish they all were as good as the first story, in which an older lady attempts to navigate life with her two unusual foster children. All in all, however, this was an enlightening and thought-provoking read.
March 2, 2024
i really loved the movie kissed, found out it's actually based on a short story from this book so i decided to read all of them. some of them were great and some of them not, but all of them have weird and slightly disturbing themes (which i'm a sucker for), so the whole book was enjoyable
May 8, 2022
I didn’t really like this book. It is a collection of short stories and some of them were quite strange.
September 6, 2024
Lovely, brave… some stories faded into the background, maybe inevitably, but overall rly enjoyed. Really moving and macabre and confident
May 20, 2015
If you are looking for a smart, intelligent human sexual drama in ordinary realms with a satisfactory conclusion – this book is not for you. On the other hand if you are willing to face up to possible inner demons revolving around sex and love cravings in Alice Munro’s style of intelligent enigmas in short stories, challenging repressed feelings and imaginations, here are eight short jewels.
Body and Soul, Challenges the sanity of an elderly grandmother (Aunt Bea) in foster home for young girls; we meet Julie (epileptic seizure; waiting for mommy in jail) as a companion to Terry (Penny) who is bald, blind and has a damaging birthmark and later Angela (missing both arms : “winglike arms flapping”) to the real angel!
Sylvie, is gifted with memory retention but burdened with a Siamese twin, Sue, from belly down; goes through her own adventure growing up, encounters love and a twin sexual encounter, is to loose Sue - on which she is conflicted.
Presbyterian Crosswalk, Beth can float above ground, lives with father and caretaker father’s mother who has lost her voice (successful singer); since her mother had run away with another man but wishes to return while Beth’s friend Helen has water in her brain and is to die soon has come across a boy critically injured in an accident needing liver transplant and how about angel?
Ninety-three Million Miles Away, is the story of Ali who has quit a boring job and is looking for affirmation of self-desirability, worth, beauty through her own sex in the presence of a silent witness, Claude, the cosmetic surgeon. I liked this story the most (what could have been just pornography is but a desperate cry) & the axiom: “..everything hinged on where you happened to be standing at a given moment...”
The Two-Headed Man, is another extreme twin story of Samuel (paranoid of Simon) and the twin head Simon (lewd) with a crisis developing centered on a girl (fiancé), Karen in Love’s desperation.
Lizards, craving sex for hunger is distinguished from craving companionship in the form of a true Love.
We So Seldom Look on Love, another challenging tale involving sexuality of a bizarre nature is where the love underlies a total, really a total, submission. (Namesake title of the book highlights the extremes in what love can entail)
Flesh of My flesh, seeking love in a young, successful man Marion is betrayed to seek a not so much of a male in her love’s calling!
Body and Soul, Challenges the sanity of an elderly grandmother (Aunt Bea) in foster home for young girls; we meet Julie (epileptic seizure; waiting for mommy in jail) as a companion to Terry (Penny) who is bald, blind and has a damaging birthmark and later Angela (missing both arms : “winglike arms flapping”) to the real angel!
Sylvie, is gifted with memory retention but burdened with a Siamese twin, Sue, from belly down; goes through her own adventure growing up, encounters love and a twin sexual encounter, is to loose Sue - on which she is conflicted.
Presbyterian Crosswalk, Beth can float above ground, lives with father and caretaker father’s mother who has lost her voice (successful singer); since her mother had run away with another man but wishes to return while Beth’s friend Helen has water in her brain and is to die soon has come across a boy critically injured in an accident needing liver transplant and how about angel?
Ninety-three Million Miles Away, is the story of Ali who has quit a boring job and is looking for affirmation of self-desirability, worth, beauty through her own sex in the presence of a silent witness, Claude, the cosmetic surgeon. I liked this story the most (what could have been just pornography is but a desperate cry) & the axiom: “..everything hinged on where you happened to be standing at a given moment...”
The Two-Headed Man, is another extreme twin story of Samuel (paranoid of Simon) and the twin head Simon (lewd) with a crisis developing centered on a girl (fiancé), Karen in Love’s desperation.
Lizards, craving sex for hunger is distinguished from craving companionship in the form of a true Love.
We So Seldom Look on Love, another challenging tale involving sexuality of a bizarre nature is where the love underlies a total, really a total, submission. (Namesake title of the book highlights the extremes in what love can entail)
Flesh of My flesh, seeking love in a young, successful man Marion is betrayed to seek a not so much of a male in her love’s calling!
May 12, 2015
I wish I could give this more than five stars. This collection of short stories blew me away. Normally there are one or two stories in a collection that 'grab' me, but every single one of these short stories is one that I want to reread. The characters are haunting and disturbing and fascinating. And I just can't stop thinking about them.
October 25, 2014
LOVED this book. LOVED. . .
January 27, 2022
Damn! This woman can WRITE.
February 28, 2025
2.5★
"The two of them have had the conversation, several times, about the obscenity of the food chain. [...] They agree that there's an argument to be made for lizards — the ones with break-away tails that grow back — as representing the highest order of life." (p.164)
I liked Gowdy's frank style of writing, and I feel like she did alright with the weirder concepts; writing from the perspective of a necrophile is probably not the easiest thing to do, because how do you empathize with them and humanize that sort of character?
I think this book is at its best when certain themes of tenderness and empathy peek through. In "Presbyterian Crosswalk", the main character's grandmother -- who used to be a singer -- has lost her vocal cords, so she plays her record loudly and mouths the words, swaying as if she's still on stage. Those bittersweet moments of humanity were some of my favorites.
Sometimes I felt like the book struggled to write from the perspective of characters with physical disabilities without still feeling a little exploitative and/or inaccurate. Certain themes -- such as animal death or cruelty -- felt thrown in for little reason besides added "weirdness" or shock value.
I think some people could be rubbed the wrong way by the fact that several stories end with characters getting an operation to "fix" their disability; even the last story, which is about a straight couple (a cis woman and a transgender man), involves the man getting bottom surgery as a last step to become a 'real man.' I felt like that story was arguably told well -- it still felt a little clumsy at times, but it had some shining moments, particularly when Sam defended his transition by comparing gender-affirming care to the various ways that other people alter their bodies to feel more comfortable in themselves (prosthetics, toupees, nose jobs, etc.). I think this point is something that goes over a lot of people's heads even now, but the fact is that the category of "gender-affirming care" is much broader than some think and it encompasses things than all people take advantage of and use, not just trans people.
finished: 02/28/2025
"The two of them have had the conversation, several times, about the obscenity of the food chain. [...] They agree that there's an argument to be made for lizards — the ones with break-away tails that grow back — as representing the highest order of life." (p.164)
I liked Gowdy's frank style of writing, and I feel like she did alright with the weirder concepts; writing from the perspective of a necrophile is probably not the easiest thing to do, because how do you empathize with them and humanize that sort of character?
I think this book is at its best when certain themes of tenderness and empathy peek through. In "Presbyterian Crosswalk", the main character's grandmother -- who used to be a singer -- has lost her vocal cords, so she plays her record loudly and mouths the words, swaying as if she's still on stage. Those bittersweet moments of humanity were some of my favorites.
Sometimes I felt like the book struggled to write from the perspective of characters with physical disabilities without still feeling a little exploitative and/or inaccurate. Certain themes -- such as animal death or cruelty -- felt thrown in for little reason besides added "weirdness" or shock value.
I think some people could be rubbed the wrong way by the fact that several stories end with characters getting an operation to "fix" their disability; even the last story, which is about a straight couple (a cis woman and a transgender man), involves the man getting bottom surgery as a last step to become a 'real man.' I felt like that story was arguably told well -- it still felt a little clumsy at times, but it had some shining moments, particularly when Sam defended his transition by comparing gender-affirming care to the various ways that other people alter their bodies to feel more comfortable in themselves (prosthetics, toupees, nose jobs, etc.). I think this point is something that goes over a lot of people's heads even now, but the fact is that the category of "gender-affirming care" is much broader than some think and it encompasses things than all people take advantage of and use, not just trans people.
finished: 02/28/2025
May 12, 2015
We So Seldom Look on Love is a collection of 8 short stories featuring: a foster family involving a blind girl, a retarded girl, and a kind, bumbling auntie; a circus freak with an extra pair of legs (a siamese twin) sticking out from her lower torso; a girl who thinks Jesus gave her the power to float; a house-wife exhibitionist; a two-headed man; an adulterous woman whose daughter was killed by a ceiling fan; a necrophiliac; and a woman who discovers her husband is a transgender female on their wedding night. All told with truth and with compassion, painting even the necrophiliac in a sympathetic light.
It's really no surprise that so many reviews describe this collection as "disturbing." But are they really?
There exists in the heart of humankind a disease, a conservative, conformist notion of 'normalcy' that serves the very useful function of unifying disparate desires and thought patterns into a singular, cooperative mindset capable of achieving great things. Peer pressure, in short, which helps everyone be on the same page but also demonizes ideas and persons exotic from us.
But why?
That is, I understand - from an evolutionary or sociological perspective - what function this ingroup/outgroup bias serves. I simply don't understand how or why any single individual person can allow him/herself to be unduly and irrationally swayed by it. How can you hate someone for being a homosexual? Why in God's name would you seek to prevent such a person from marrying their loved one? Why would you bully someone for looking or speaking or being different? Can you not see that this is WRONG? Do you not have the free will to choose what is right?
I mean, who wants others to be the same as you? Who wants to be the same as others? Who will allow some celebrity, preacher, or government official to define your fashion, your ideas, your interests, or your beliefs? Who wants to write the same story as everyone else? Who wants to follow the same dream as everyone else? Must we unify in having an identical dream (the American dream, say) instead of unifying in the fact that we do all have dreams, even if they may be wildly different?
I didn't really find these stories "disturbing." Rather, I find the notion of "normalcy" to be truly disturbing. It is limiting, it is hateful, and it is boring as all heck. Society, evolution, and biology together form a giant factory attempting to churn out the same types of people over and over. We So Seldom Look on Love is the story of those who, through some error in the system, didn't turn out the same.
And so I, at last, come to my rating, my 3 stars. I would not call this collection disturbing but I certainly would call it depressing. I have come to the realization that you should never read a short story collection from the same author unless that author is a speculative writer (e.g. Ted Chiang and his Stories of Your Life And Others) or the collection forms an overall whole (e.g. Tim O' Brien's The Things They Carried).
Because while the characters in We So Seldom Look on Love aren't the same as the 'normal' person, they are the same in their lack of sameness. That is, every story in this collection is essentially the same story. The emotional footprint is identical. The ebb and flow of foreshadowing, conflict, rising action, etc are identical. Every story is about a person completely defined by his or her abnormality or trauma. Take away the necrohpiliac's necrophilia, for example, and what story do you have?
To some degree this is the real genius of this collection, how it reveals that - necrophiliac or two-headed or blind or completely normal - we all really want the same thing don't we? To be loved, to give love! These freaks, these abnormal characters, they're really just the same as us, aren't they?
No. People aren't the same "deep down." We don't all want the same thing. This is what I was going on and on about in the beginning of my review - how people ARE different. It is NOT necessary for people to be the same "deep down." Sameness may make for a more efficient society. In fact, I know it does because all of the universe operates on the Efficiency principle. Do you know why atoms prefer to have their valence shell filled with electrons? It's not because of desire - it's purely because that's the most stable and therefore most statistically likely configuration. But the notion of structuring society primarily on efficiency seems, well, it seems wrong, doesn't it? Inhuman is the word I'd use.
So, three stars and a recommendation: any one of these stories, taken on its own and in isolation, is fantastic. But as a collection, as a linear & continuous reading experience, it's incredibly depressing. It's like walking around a circular hallway with windows showing the same inner courtyard. Each view is different... yet the same. And when you complete the circle, when you complete the reading of this collection, where have you arrived? Nowhere. You're right back where you started.
There is something fatalistic and depressing in that feeling. I am almost certainly a fool, but I like to think that abnormal people need not be defined by their abnormality. I like to think that intolerance is slowly growing extinct. That with each year, humankind undoes the chains that biology and physics and the universe (or God) have wrapped around us. That we will be free of the hatred that we KNOW is wrong yet somehow can't seem to escape.
Strangely enough, I think this short story collection agrees with me. Many of the stories DO depict the characters attempting to escape their abnormality or other characters coming to accept the abnormal one's abnormality as just one aspect of an otherwise complete individual. But for the most part, they fail. It was like watching a fight between a brave and good band of warriors vs. a grand and evil overlord... and watching the good get crushed. Absolutely annihilated. I mean, it happens. Just as the opposite sometimes happens too. But every story here was the same. Every story showed the world going on and on and on in the same vein, over and over, in a never-ending cycle that takes you nowhere. I felt no lightness, no escape. Instead, I felt more trapped than ever.
It's really no surprise that so many reviews describe this collection as "disturbing." But are they really?
There exists in the heart of humankind a disease, a conservative, conformist notion of 'normalcy' that serves the very useful function of unifying disparate desires and thought patterns into a singular, cooperative mindset capable of achieving great things. Peer pressure, in short, which helps everyone be on the same page but also demonizes ideas and persons exotic from us.
But why?
That is, I understand - from an evolutionary or sociological perspective - what function this ingroup/outgroup bias serves. I simply don't understand how or why any single individual person can allow him/herself to be unduly and irrationally swayed by it. How can you hate someone for being a homosexual? Why in God's name would you seek to prevent such a person from marrying their loved one? Why would you bully someone for looking or speaking or being different? Can you not see that this is WRONG? Do you not have the free will to choose what is right?
I mean, who wants others to be the same as you? Who wants to be the same as others? Who will allow some celebrity, preacher, or government official to define your fashion, your ideas, your interests, or your beliefs? Who wants to write the same story as everyone else? Who wants to follow the same dream as everyone else? Must we unify in having an identical dream (the American dream, say) instead of unifying in the fact that we do all have dreams, even if they may be wildly different?
I didn't really find these stories "disturbing." Rather, I find the notion of "normalcy" to be truly disturbing. It is limiting, it is hateful, and it is boring as all heck. Society, evolution, and biology together form a giant factory attempting to churn out the same types of people over and over. We So Seldom Look on Love is the story of those who, through some error in the system, didn't turn out the same.
And so I, at last, come to my rating, my 3 stars. I would not call this collection disturbing but I certainly would call it depressing. I have come to the realization that you should never read a short story collection from the same author unless that author is a speculative writer (e.g. Ted Chiang and his Stories of Your Life And Others) or the collection forms an overall whole (e.g. Tim O' Brien's The Things They Carried).
Because while the characters in We So Seldom Look on Love aren't the same as the 'normal' person, they are the same in their lack of sameness. That is, every story in this collection is essentially the same story. The emotional footprint is identical. The ebb and flow of foreshadowing, conflict, rising action, etc are identical. Every story is about a person completely defined by his or her abnormality or trauma. Take away the necrohpiliac's necrophilia, for example, and what story do you have?
To some degree this is the real genius of this collection, how it reveals that - necrophiliac or two-headed or blind or completely normal - we all really want the same thing don't we? To be loved, to give love! These freaks, these abnormal characters, they're really just the same as us, aren't they?
No. People aren't the same "deep down." We don't all want the same thing. This is what I was going on and on about in the beginning of my review - how people ARE different. It is NOT necessary for people to be the same "deep down." Sameness may make for a more efficient society. In fact, I know it does because all of the universe operates on the Efficiency principle. Do you know why atoms prefer to have their valence shell filled with electrons? It's not because of desire - it's purely because that's the most stable and therefore most statistically likely configuration. But the notion of structuring society primarily on efficiency seems, well, it seems wrong, doesn't it? Inhuman is the word I'd use.
So, three stars and a recommendation: any one of these stories, taken on its own and in isolation, is fantastic. But as a collection, as a linear & continuous reading experience, it's incredibly depressing. It's like walking around a circular hallway with windows showing the same inner courtyard. Each view is different... yet the same. And when you complete the circle, when you complete the reading of this collection, where have you arrived? Nowhere. You're right back where you started.
There is something fatalistic and depressing in that feeling. I am almost certainly a fool, but I like to think that abnormal people need not be defined by their abnormality. I like to think that intolerance is slowly growing extinct. That with each year, humankind undoes the chains that biology and physics and the universe (or God) have wrapped around us. That we will be free of the hatred that we KNOW is wrong yet somehow can't seem to escape.
Strangely enough, I think this short story collection agrees with me. Many of the stories DO depict the characters attempting to escape their abnormality or other characters coming to accept the abnormal one's abnormality as just one aspect of an otherwise complete individual. But for the most part, they fail. It was like watching a fight between a brave and good band of warriors vs. a grand and evil overlord... and watching the good get crushed. Absolutely annihilated. I mean, it happens. Just as the opposite sometimes happens too. But every story here was the same. Every story showed the world going on and on and on in the same vein, over and over, in a never-ending cycle that takes you nowhere. I felt no lightness, no escape. Instead, I felt more trapped than ever.
March 10, 2018
It's really hard to rate this book - I've never been more disturbed while reading a book and had to stop somewhere to take a break.
The writing style and the writing itself is extremely good, Gowdy skillfully manages to intrigue you with the dark concepts and the 'different' protagonists she has throughout the stories. I liked some of the stories a little too much to be healthy but they were written so well & were so blatantly absurd I had a lot of fun reading them. The book keeps you on your toes, capturing your interest and curiosity. It reminded me just how fucked up humans can be and that that doesn't mean it's a bad thing necesssarily. Defs give this one a chance if you have an iron stomach.
Trigger warnings for the book - several animal deaths, multiple children's death (including one baby death), necrophilia, sexual abuse (rape), exhibitionism, graphic death & sex scenes among others.
The writing style and the writing itself is extremely good, Gowdy skillfully manages to intrigue you with the dark concepts and the 'different' protagonists she has throughout the stories. I liked some of the stories a little too much to be healthy but they were written so well & were so blatantly absurd I had a lot of fun reading them. The book keeps you on your toes, capturing your interest and curiosity. It reminded me just how fucked up humans can be and that that doesn't mean it's a bad thing necesssarily. Defs give this one a chance if you have an iron stomach.
Trigger warnings for the book - several animal deaths, multiple children's death (including one baby death), necrophilia, sexual abuse (rape), exhibitionism, graphic death & sex scenes among others.
May 7, 2022
4 / 5 stars
There's something so intriguing, and dare I say alluring, about the bizarre and macabre in stories.
I am still unfamiliar with Gowdy's work - I only ever heard of her when studying one of her short stories in an english class... A lot of the students complained about the content in "We so seldom look on love", but I really enjoyed it.
The frank but mystical tone of this short story left me wanting to read more. Despite the abnormal eccentricity of it (or maybe even because of it), I was left with an odd feeling of loving it, but also thinking it weird that I loved it.
The last star I left off purely for the writing style. Don't get me wrong I didn't mind the style, but I think it was just a little over-hyped.
*This also gets bonus marks in my opinion for being a Canadian work!*
There's something so intriguing, and dare I say alluring, about the bizarre and macabre in stories.
I am still unfamiliar with Gowdy's work - I only ever heard of her when studying one of her short stories in an english class... A lot of the students complained about the content in "We so seldom look on love", but I really enjoyed it.
The frank but mystical tone of this short story left me wanting to read more. Despite the abnormal eccentricity of it (or maybe even because of it), I was left with an odd feeling of loving it, but also thinking it weird that I loved it.
The last star I left off purely for the writing style. Don't get me wrong I didn't mind the style, but I think it was just a little over-hyped.
*This also gets bonus marks in my opinion for being a Canadian work!*
November 23, 2022
This collection is fascinating and upsetting — very, very different from Gowdy’s novel The White Bone, which is one of my favourite books.
The stories in this collection are consistent in terms of quality, and they all kept my interest, which is rare for me to say about a short story collection. But this is not, for me, the kind of collection that one can love (even though the stories are all ostensibly about love).
The most disturbing story for me was “Sylvie,” I just found the sexual content in that one to be repugnant, like who would ever conceive of that sex event?? And then write a story about it???
But the prose is just so highly readable in my opinion.
It’s been a long time since I read a whole book in one sitting. But I can’t say I really read in one sitting because I was loving it so much, know what I mean?
The stories in this collection are consistent in terms of quality, and they all kept my interest, which is rare for me to say about a short story collection. But this is not, for me, the kind of collection that one can love (even though the stories are all ostensibly about love).
The most disturbing story for me was “Sylvie,” I just found the sexual content in that one to be repugnant, like who would ever conceive of that sex event?? And then write a story about it???
But the prose is just so highly readable in my opinion.
It’s been a long time since I read a whole book in one sitting. But I can’t say I really read in one sitting because I was loving it so much, know what I mean?
February 26, 2018
"We So Seldom Look on Love" is a beautiful collection of short stories related by one big theme: monstrosity. It is such a weird, difficult, obscene topic, yet Gowdy's writing style is so easy, so fluent, so beautiful, that every story flows easily and beautifully. I think I have never read a book this fast. Story after story, you feel like glued to the pages, knowing that a moment of shock is soon to come, and wanting to know what it is. Love is certainly another big theme, a red wire which links the whole collection.
August 29, 2018
No doubt the writing is good. Great, even. But the material is revolting. Any one of these stories would stand high above the crowd in a collection but strung together leans towards madness. Championing this particular book would be like championing the fellow who does his business then turns around to study it just a bit too long. It took a long time for me to finish this book and I have the feeling that I am actually abandoning it. Each time I came back to it after a long break, I could hear my inner shouting "Effing shut up already!"
April 28, 2024
3.5 stars
First two stories were the strongest and also the hardest to get through— but maybe that’s because the shock wore off since I read the whole collection while traveling. The last story was hard in a different way. 1990s outsiders understanding of transness that made me feel like the things I read as a kid that made me want to off myself lol. The last line- “They would seem like two happily married, normal people”- sooo close.
Need to think more on this collection in terms of shock / exploitation I think.
First two stories were the strongest and also the hardest to get through— but maybe that’s because the shock wore off since I read the whole collection while traveling. The last story was hard in a different way. 1990s outsiders understanding of transness that made me feel like the things I read as a kid that made me want to off myself lol. The last line- “They would seem like two happily married, normal people”- sooo close.
Need to think more on this collection in terms of shock / exploitation I think.
February 28, 2025
did i read this just cuz one of the stories was turned into a movie that i enjoyed?
yeah 😔
was it the most interesting story in the collection?
also yeah 😔 but perhaps i’m biased because the female necrophile in media is something that is instantly interesting to me.
the story about the trans man husband has aged really badly but it’s an interesting view on how trans issues were viewed at the time. i really enjoyed the story of the girl with the second set of legs, that’s a story i think should’ve been longer because i really wanted to know what happened after the surgery.
yeah 😔
was it the most interesting story in the collection?
also yeah 😔 but perhaps i’m biased because the female necrophile in media is something that is instantly interesting to me.
the story about the trans man husband has aged really badly but it’s an interesting view on how trans issues were viewed at the time. i really enjoyed the story of the girl with the second set of legs, that’s a story i think should’ve been longer because i really wanted to know what happened after the surgery.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 13, 2020
This is the first thing I have read by Barbara Gowdy. The writing was great or I wouldn't have made it through this odd collection of strange stories about strange people! It is hard to rate as I had to stop reading a few times through the stories, and can't actually say I enjoyed the stories although I did enjoy reading the book. Almost gave it a 4, which it probably deserved but don't know if "really like" applies. I will probably search out Mister Sandman now...
December 24, 2023
These stories are wonderfully written. There is language used within this collection that is unfortunately dated, including the r-word & outdated language for trans folks, but it was written in 1992, so I can give that some space. I think, putting dates language aside, each of these stories offers something unexpected, captivating, and humanizing to its characters. Not all of the protagonists are likeable. But all of them are offered fullness and complexity. I really enjoyed this collection.
September 13, 2018
I’ve been told Gowdy is not to everyone’s taste - I think I might fall into that category. I kept reading to see what could possibly come next, but certainly not my usual fare. I enjoyed the last story probably the most (about a woman who married a trans man, flipping back and forth to tell the tale of what led to that point in her life).
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