The Brutal Language of Love: Stories [Paperback]

Alicia Erian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2008

Alicia Erian's characters are brave, disarming, affectionate, and deeply flawed. They inhabit the not-so-very-wide space between a good intention and a bad outcome. In "Alcatraz," we meet a middle-school spelling champion who spends her afternoons taking baths with the boy next door. In "Almonds and Cherries," a young woman turns an unexpectedly arousing bra-shopping experience into a short film, with ramifications for everyone around her. In "On the Occasion of My Ruination," a college-bound student plots to lose her virginity to a pizza parlor waiter. The Brutal Language of Love challenges traditional notions of right and wrong with what has become Erian's signature -- an achingly stylish humor and a deep understanding of the brutal truth about human nature. These surprising, provocative, and deeply resonant stories marked the emergence of a major talent

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Erian has published in hip, commendable places like Zoetrope and Nerve, but this is her first collection. It's a work one reads and likes despite oneself, because the characters can make one frown. There's Beatrice, who tries to make her grades in school by seducing her professors while rather meanly rejecting the advances of a lovelorn freshman, and newly married Shayna, who could never get through her famous father-in-law's books but falls for him anyway. Erian has a way of creating situations that make one read compulsively, like a guilty pleasure. She's good at capturing the dark and sensual underside of life without either celebrating it, or judging it, or presenting it with deadpan cynicism. She cares, and it comes across. A good choice for public libraries, especially with younger readers who deserve someone voicing their concerns. Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

"I did it against my better judgment" is an old saying usually accompanied by a rueful shake of the head. The characters in Erian's short stories seem possessed of less-than-better judgment well seasoned with rue, acting out signals from a shadowy part of the psyche coordinating with a peculiarly complicated portion of the heart. A new bride finds herself strongly attracted to her father-in-law. Joyce and her brother Farrell bemoan their mother's obsessive need to meddle in strangers' lives, only to see themselves outbidding her in an effort to do the same. Vanessa, who dislikes wearing clothes, torments her modest sister with her nudity as an adolescent, then in college takes up with a superconservative Egyptian exchange student who's distressed at most of her clothes, sorting her closet into two categories: things she should and should not wear. He abandons her (wearing a forbidden bikini) in a lake, but, paradoxically, she marries him. Isn't it funny how those who make us shake our heads can be oddly endearing? Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (July 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416592717
• ISBN-13: 978-1416592716
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #953,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great collection from a stirring new voice, January 6, 2004

By 

"shahinc" (Hollywood, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brutal Language of Love: Stories (Hardcover)

let me start by saying that this is the only book i have ever felt compelled to review on this site, and probably will be the only one for quite some time. picking up this book was an impulse buy, as i violated two main rules in purchasing it: firstly, i don't buy authors i haven't heard of; and secondly, i shy away from women in contemporary fiction because i have gotten burned way too much in the last few years. that being said, this collection is one of the finest that i have read in my life. the protagonists are all empowered females, so the book has a feminist flair, but what is most interesting about the presentation is the decidedly anti-feminist undercurrent. erian never leaves things clear cut. when her characters makes conscious decisions that empower them, that allow them to flaunt their power and their sexuality, i found myself cringing because while these are powerful decisions, they are not exactly the right ones, and the characters know it. there is a self-destruction in the exercising of their femininity that is at once wholly new, unexpected, admirable, and tragic. erian's prose is economic and careful, and her stories taunt the reader with abrupt endings and open interpretation. she will end a story right as she leads up to a confrontation that has been building for fifteen pages, and it is here that she empowers her reader, by allowing them to take an active role in ending the story. based on what we have read, we know in our hearts how the story will end based on what we drew from the body of the prose; but our endings will all be different. erian's voice is immediate and achingly contemporary...it makes fare like the canon of oprah's book club seem inept and maudlin. this is power in storytelling. i can't wait for her upcoming novel.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Left to their own devices..., April 24, 2001

By 

Miranda Richardson (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brutal Language of Love: Stories (Hardcover)

Left to their own devices the women of Alicia Arian's first collection of short stories often willfully set down the wrong path as a way to feel more alive, even if the consequences are dire. Her heroines are self absorbed, masochists but somehow we, as readers, are compelled to stick with them through the ugliness that is all too familiar. Arian delves into the shameful moments that all of us share without moral proselytizing. She engages us through her acerbic wit and an assured hand. One after the other, each of her stories is a tart treat. Damged goods never were so prized.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars new mary gaitskillesque writer, August 16, 2001

By 

Catherine (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brutal Language of Love: Stories (Hardcover)

This book is definitely worth reading. The story about the girl losing her virginity absoulutely killed me. I was almost embarrassed while reading it, it felt so real, I felt as though I were intruding on a real person's privacy. For me that is a sign of really good writing. Looking forward to more by the author.