LOVE: A STORY is laced with philosophic musings on the nature of love, life, and story telling. The dominant theme is that life is a story, and that living is story telling. The last part suggest that the book that Michael, the main character, begins to write is the book the reader is reading, and the reader is left to wonder whether the action is in fact “real” or just “a story.”
Bill Smoot grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, and received his BA at Purdue University where he was the editor of the student newspaper. He was fired from his position by the university president for the newspaper's editorial policies and then reinstated when the campus rose up in protest. He received his PhD in philosophy from Northwestern. He has published essays and short stories in such publications as The Nation, Crab Orchard Review, Literary Review, The Sun, Western Humanities Review, Barely South, Ninth Letter, Mud Season Review, Crab Creek Review, and Narrative. He is the author of a novel, San Quentin Exodus and a non-fiction book, Conversations with Great Teachers. He lives in Berkeley, California, and teaches college courses at Mount Tamalpais College in San Quentin Prison.