I know I read about this book somewhere, but I can’t remember where or when I first heard about it. This is my first Lily King book and I was surprised it was short stories (clearly I didn’t read the back before I bought it). I really enjoyed it, all of the stories, not just one or two. My favourite was ‘When in the Dordogne’ (here’s a review of it).
Here’s the blurb …
By the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers, Lily King’s first-ever collection of exceptional and innovative short stories
Told in the intimate voices of unique and endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller’s unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl’s loss of innocence at the hands of her employer’s son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter’s hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King’s enduring subject of love.
The writing is fabulous, the characters nuanced – it’s the ordinary made extraordinary. There is a somewhat common theme of alcoholism (more particularly alcoholic parents neglecting their children), but there is love and kindness as well.
This is one of my favourite books of the year. I have since got Euphoria out of the library.