Customer Reviews

Equal Love

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You know, I've noticed that people who write reviews on here either go overboard with their praise, or they pan the book. Well not here.

Folks, let me say this about Equal Love: it's pretty good. There is accomplished prose throughout, several very good stories, one or two excellent stories and a couple average ones.

For the most part, I enjoyed Mr. Davies voice and although I will not pronounce this a five star work of brilliance, I will be looking forward to more of his work.

Overall, a solid and worthy effort.

Peter Davies' stories cleanly strike the shifting ground notes-- sometimes discordant, sometimes rapturous-- that resonate at the core of human relationships. "How to be an Expatriate" is as deft a portrait of the "inter-continental lost soul" as the best of Pico Iyer's writing; like an archaeologist hoarding potsherds adorned with runes from a long-forgotten language, the narrator of "Today is Sunday" clutches at those scant moments that cast reliable light into the shadowed corners of the love between parents and their children; and the hapless, feckless lovers in "Equal Love" catch the clearer vision of themselves not from the detached perspective commended by the ideas of commitment or obligation but from the reflection of their folly that they find in a glimpse of their children's adolescent gropings for affection. Many writers of contemporary fiction prize structure and disdain content in their efforts to lay hold of the character of our particular cultural moment. This strategy lets slip by some of the finer, richer insights that Davies' net captures for us.

Peter Ho Davies has put together a fabulous short story collection. It is a collection though, that hangs together with the unified strength of a novel. Each story has strenghths of its own, but the effect of them as a group is even stronger. These are contemporary stories, each one of them different, with different kinds of characters, but they are all about love. Davies focuses mainly on the love between parents and children. He questions--Can the love between a parent and a child possibly be equal love? These stories will stay with you long after you read them. They are wonderful. I highly recommend Equal Love.