First Love and Other Sorrows: Stories (Paperback)

by Harold Brodkey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Back in print, Harold Brodkey's masterful first volume of short fiction, with two never-before anthologized stories.

When originally published in 1958, First Love and Other Sorrows won Harold Brodkey widespread acclaim and announced a brilliant new arrival on the literary scene. Brodkey was hailed as an "unusually gifted writer" (The Atlantic) and a "rich talent" (San Francisco Chronicle), whose stories read like "murmured confidences, highly personal yet carefully contrived" (Chicago Tribune).

In First Love and Other Sorrows, the young Brodkey chronicles the world of the educated and affluent middle class of the 1950s, at leisure and in love. He establishes the themes that would appear throughout his career(the painful uncertainties of childhood, the halting intimacies of social life(with rare tenderness, humor, and haunting insight.

Two new stories, never before collected, from Brodkey's early writings join the original volume to complete a much-loved classic.

About the Author
A staff writer for The New Yorker since the early 1950s, Harold Brodkey died in 1996. He was the author of two novels, including The Runaway Soul (Owl Books, 0-8050-5503-7, $17.00), three short-story collections, and a memoir, This Wild Darkness (Owl Books, 0-8050-5511-8, $12.95), My Venice (Metropolitan, 0-8050-4833-2, $20.00), and The World is the Home of Love and Death.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805060103
• ISBN-13: 978-0805060102
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #565,745 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncommon Stories about Growing Up, Love & Social Culture, May 21, 2004

By	Erika Borsos "pepper flower" (Gulf Coast of FL, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This book of short stories provides a rare glimpse and unique cultural viewpoint of growing up in a mid-western working class environment in the late 1940s and early 1950s. ESsentially, the family lived an affluent lifestyle until his father made a few bad business decisions, lost their home, and later died from a lingering illness. The observations and insights Brodkey provides are priceless. He contrasts his position to that of a wealthy friend, whom he met at an Ivy League school and whose viewpoint and values reflect a totally different approach to life. He describes his mother's aspirations for his sister, whose *only* chances for a "better life", i.e., achieving social and economic advantages, was by dating the right class of boyfriend, as she was expected to marry into a higher social class. The "Quarrel" is a story about his visit to France with a very wealthy friend and their adventures and "fall out", when their social, cultural and viewpoints about life clash, resulting in a quarrel with wounded feelings that can never be repaired.

One of my favorite stories is "Sentimental Education" where a male student sees a pretty young lady at the college he attends and longs to meet and date her. He occasionally sees her at different locations but is too shy to speak to her. He daydreams about meeting her as he falls head over heels in love. He discovers she signed up for a Medieval poetry class, so he changes his choice and signs up for the same class. Eventually they meet and discuss literature. The heart of this story is the strong physical and emotional needs that accompnay this "first love' experience. Brodkey is a tremendously gifted author who provides keen and sensitive insights into life as it was lived in the 1950s. He provides an interesting contrast of the viewpoints of working people and those who possess privilege, money, and therefore more power. This is a book rich with detailed observations about social distinctions and the human behavior that accompanies different positions in society. It provides a greater understanding of r life as it was lived within a particular cultural era. This book receives my highest recommendations. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American literary landmark, June 6, 2000

By	Bob Schwoch (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I saw this book had never been reviewed or rated on Amazon, I felt obligated to correct the situation. This is a landmark collection, a truly great piece of literature. Written at mid-century, these wrenching coming-of-age stories still feel as fresh as any fiction being published today; I believe they've weathered more gracefully than John Cheever's stories have, and that's saying something. Brodkey's later collection, "Stories in an Almost Classical Mode," is more widely available these days for some reason. This is a better book and your best choice for an introduction to the work of this astounding writer.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This guy's got guts, October 20, 2006

By	Lazyboy (San Francisco, USA) - See all my reviews

He writes like nobody else. His stories contain moments that are so beautifully personal and intimate that they left me amazed and full of admiration. He captures youthful shame, compassion and indifference in a more direct an honest way than any writer I have read. His work is uneven, and there are parts that are an effort to get through, but when he gets it right he reminds me why I love literature, and how thrilling it is to be shown a person's truthful, inner life.