Labors of the Heart: Stories

by Claire Davis

Acclaimed novelist Claire Davis gathers stories that have been published in leading journals and reprinted in the Pushcart and Best American Short Stories
Adultery presents the quandary of a middle-aged man whose mother is cheating on her husband by keeping company with her ex-husband. In Grounded , a mother follows her teenage son as he attempts to run away along Montana's highways. And in Labors of the Heart , a lonely man--enormous and virginal --is literally struck by love for a woman he sees at a supermarket.Keenly attuned to the workings of the human heart and the hidden longings of seemingly-settled people, Labors of the Heart is a first-rate collection.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started out promising with well written prose on relationship stories. But 60 pages into the book, on the fourth story, I felt I was reading the same thing over and over. The style of writing and story construction is the same in each story and quickly becomes monotonous. It's so easy to read this passively without being engaged in the prose. The characters' situations are the focus here, leaving me completely detached from the characters themselves. Worst of all, the narrative drift between each line of dialogue drove me nuts: someone says something then the narrator tells us what the character thinks or feels about it, or gives us a flashback or fills in the details of the story, before the next line of dialogue and then does the same thing and this continues as long as there is dialogue... I'm sorry, but that defies the whole concept of dialogue!

I'm moving on, there are to many good books still to read.

[Marrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a stunning collection of short stories from a master of the form.

In Harold Bloom's opus on the Western canon, he considered the question of what makes a book great and concluded that it all comes down to strangeness. A great book always leaves a strange impression, and if it's strange, it will remain strange, no matter how many times you've read it. So it is with the collection. It catches you off-guard in that whimsical way of great storytelling.

In my mind, the only flaw that can be said of it is that the stories end on similar emotional notes. Davis generally turns to landscape and sky at the end of her pieces, giving the conclusions to dramatically different stories a very similar feel.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really gripping collection of short stories! Most of these stories are set out west (Montana, Idaho, etc.) and feature tough, weather-beaten characters who are shaken from their emotional complacency by an unexpected event in their lives. Davis's description of the setting is amazing; the mountains and lonely landscape almost become a character. While I enjoyed all of the stories, below are a description of my favorites.

In "Balance" a divorced couple seeks child custody mediation. The husband Emmett ("Em") lost his arm in a tragic accident years ago, and his ex-wife Judith thinks he blames the event on their son, but to Em, the issue is much more complicated than that. In the incredibly beautiful "Grounded", a teenage boy sets off to run away from his mother, but she refuses to let him go, and ends up following him across the state on what becomes a kind of road trip. "Tap" is the fun and touching story of a group of middle-aged envelope/stationary factory workers who decide to take a tap dance class together that their company offers for free. And in “Trash,” a farmer finds a terrible discovery in his fields that makes him question his lifelong calling and legacy.

Gorgeous writing that will really make you feel something! Davis presents a depth of character and understanding that makes you think she's truly lived a thousand different lives and walked a mile in each of her character's shoes.

[Felicity]

I think it's probably the better part of valor to refrain from giving star ratings to books written by my professors, on the off-chance that someday I don't like one of 'em.

This is a fine collection of short stories. The conflicts and plots tend to arise organically out of character, out of the natural ebb and flow of relationships, aging, aspiration and frustration. Claire's relationships tend to have the texture and idiosyncracies of real things. However, that is not to say that these stories are just about relationships. Things do happen in these stories, and in reading the book, I must confess, I did on occasion laugh and at least once cry.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

These days short stories don't keep my interest (though they were my first love, when I was becoming a writer), but Claire Davis knocks me out.

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written with eloquent descriptions that drew me into the stories immediately. I especially liked "Tap" and "Balance".

[Adam Colorado · Rating 3 out of 5]

My professor assigned the a story from this collection, during my freshman year. I found the story to be a breath of fresh air because it was an unconventional "romance" story.