The Love Olympics

by Claire Wilkshire

Warm, funny, and stylistically savvy, these stories follow an interlocking set of characters and the people they love.

Characters weave their way in and out of The Love Olympics, a collection of short fiction set in St. John’s. The book is about various forms of love—the ways love grips us, shakes us, releases or envelops us. The stories are smart, witty, funny, warm, and surprising; they capture the preoccupations of characters from different generations who are closely or only tangentially connected to one another. This collection explores people’s aspirations, fears, and vulnerabilities; their generosity and desire for connection; their willingness to see past flaws and appreciate other human beings in all their complexity.

Genres: Short Stories, Canada

232 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2021

Reviews

[Chad Pelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it because

Claire has a way of dialing in on the moments that drop like lighting into otherwise unremarkable days when you take the time to illuminate those moments, ourselves, and the ties that bind us to others.

Liked it because

Every story has some of those lines that make short stories so incisive and electrifying in a way poetry and novels can't get to; lines we see ourselves in, or understand our world's more clearly because of.

Her stories are laced with what makes short fiction so special, human, and electrifying for people who geek out on artful writing and sizzling literary style.

You know much work has gone into these stories by how well each line reads and how all filler had been edited out.

Recommend it to

Anyone who loves the vivacity of quality modern Canadian short fiction, especially as per NL authors. Specifically, lovers of short fiction from her Burning Rock Fiction collective members, like Lisa Moore and Libby Creelman.

[Sue Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long after I've finished reading this book, I am still attempting to work out which of the characters is me! The complexities, the motivations, the emotions are so deftly handled and it is easy to identify with many aspects of each character. I loved the clever, theatrical way in which they enter stage left or make a cameo in a later chapter, causing me to point and shout, "Look! I know her already!"
I'm a reader who loves to learn new things while making my way through a book and the author educated me about place, peoples and life in Newfoundland - both similarities to familiar scenes in my own life in the Cotswolds of England, and culture clashes. The stories are very involving and I highly recommend diving in - which character is you?

[hiaa123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sweet, perfect book to read on Christmas Day. The Love Olympics center on a community of people in Newfoundland. I loved noticing how the characters showed up in each other's stories. The stories in this collection are about love in all its forms, the human need for connection. Parental and maternal love is a big theme. It felt refreshing to read about older people and their ways of expressing and feeling love. It made me feel a closeness to my own mother.

My favourite story may have been "The Dinner." I have a close-knit group of girlfriends and I could picture us together at 50, filled with love for each other and extending to our children.
"This was the story of their lives together: when one was floundering, the other two reached out and grabbed whatever part of her they could catch, they gripped hard enough to hurt, harder than that, they left marks, they hauled her along while she spluttered or puked or cried, they kept dragging until she was under her own steam again, and they did this with resolve and occasional bad temper, with humour and cursing, with a recognition of who was better at what and a full knowledge of everything that had brought them to this point, except the many things they'd forgotten, and most importantly they did it without hestiation; they did it with what they didn't usually think of as love because they didn't think about it much at all."

Reading all of these depictions of love and relationships was so heartwarming. I am filled with love right now.

"It's taking the time to decide what is exactly the right thing for the other person in that moment, as if it were an important decision, as if there were a right answer and finding it required due consideration."

And I am also very much here:

"There, Morgan wouldn't have to decide whether to go to university, or to wonder whether anyone other than her parents would ever love her, really truly love her, enjoy her company, would they think she was a beautiful person, not in body for god's sake but the whole of her being, would anyone ever think that or was it too much to hope for."

[Cameron Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a really nice read! definitely a love actually vibe with all the interconnected stories, and I really enjoyed Wilkshire's writing. fav stories were definitely "The Dinner," "Fourteen Steps," and "House."

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire Wilkshire’s enchanting collection of short fiction has a narrow focus: the many forms that love takes and the challenges that people face while trying to stay connected. The stories are set in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and include parents, lovers, close friends, and sons and daughters among an appealing cast of characters. Claire Wilkshire writes about ordinary people whose struggles and dilemmas are easily recognizable and with which the reader will have no problem sympathizing. She draws the reader into the emotional fray immediately with the first story. “Mothers,” narrated from the second-person perspective, is addressed to all mothers who are seeing their children off to university for the first time, and who must struggle to balance a parent’s natural separation anxiety with the necessity of permitting their offspring distance to exert their independence and make their own mistakes. In “Snow,” the 30-something narrator has encountered a friend, Jessica, for the first time in eight years and learns that Jessica and her husband, Chris, have moved back to St. John’s from Toronto. The romance that arises shocks him because he’s not looking for love. But throughout their relationship, as it grows beyond friendship and turns physical, and then hits some bumps, he finds himself helpless, buffeted by feelings he didn’t know he was capable of. And “Dating” recounts the bittersweet and often hilarious adventures of 40-something Kimberley on the dating circuit, having left her husband of many years when she discovered he was having an affair. Wilkshire excels at depicting the ebb and flow of emotional currents that run through her characters’ experiences with the people they love, the ups and downs of affection, a parent’s fear that she cares too much and is in danger of appearing meddlesome. These are emotionally authentic, often very funny stories of the many guises of love that wear their heart on their sleeve, written in simple, straightforward prose. An absolute delight.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of (mostly) interlinked short stories richly deserves its recent inclusion by Newfoundland's provincial newspaper among the top 10 books of 2021. The writing is precise and elegant and often dryly witty. The characters - refreshingly mostly sympathetic women working hard to help their friends and family - have a ring of truth in what they say and do, and residents of St John's in particular will recognize every precisely described detail.

I loved her earlier Maxine and have had to wait nine years for this one but it was worth the wait!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant and humorous collection about love in all forms that follows a set of characters in a community in St.John, Newfoundland. I absolutely adored this collection!

Thank you to the publisher for sending me this book opinions are my own.

For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories about love.
Some a 4.5 , some a 3..
Worth the read..
Looking forward to discussion at Bookclub..

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Cried a few times. Took a while to finish I think mostly because I didn’t want it to end. Loved the first story, and fourteen steps, and the second last story. But they’re all lovely.

[Angela Antle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire's sentences deserve gold medals. Exquisitely beautiful and thoughtful writing.