Half in Love : Stories [Paperback]

Maile Meloy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 2003

Lean and controlled in their narration, abundant and moving in their effects, Maile Meloy's stories introduce a striking talent. Most are set in the modern American West, made vivid and unexpected in Meloy's unsentimental vision; others take us to Paris, wartime London, and Greece, with the same remarkable skill and intuition.

In "Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976," two couples face a complicated grief when one of the four dies. In "Ranch Girl," the college-bound daughter of a ranch foreman must choose which adult world she wants to occupy. In "A Stakes Horse," a woman confronts risk and loss at the racetrack and at home. And in "Aqua Boulevard" -- winner of the 2001 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction -- an elderly Parisian confronts his mortality. Meloy's command of her characters' voices is breathtaking; their fears and desires are deftly illuminated. Smart, surprising, and evocative, Meloy's brilliantly observed stories fully engage the mind and heart.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 14 stories in Meloy's confident, polished debut tell the tales of many different people lawyers, ranchers, ex-pats and school girls often as, in moments of clarity, their understanding of their place in the world poignantly shifts. In the spare, haunting "Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976," a young man mourns the drowning of his best friend and his wife's infidelity, even as he realizes that "all he could hate his friend for was that [he] had been loved." In "Thirteen and a Half," a homely girl briefly singled out by an unfamiliar and dangerous boy at a school dance registers his choice as something akin to a life-altering serendipity, as she watches him vanish "among the boys who were just boys, who meant nothing to her, boys she saw every day of her life." Death both animal and human, either experienced or imminent plays a part in many of Meloy's stories. A champion colt's terrible frostbite complicates an already knotty marriage in the heartbreaking "Kite Whistler Aquamarine," while a father's terminal cancer gives his daughter a different understanding of what's fair and what should be risked in "A Stakes Horse." "Ranch Girl," one of the 10 stories Meloy sets in her native West, is one of her strongest and sharpest: "If you're white, and you're not rich or poor but somewhere in the middle, it's hard to have worse luck than to be born a girl on a ranch," the narrator says, even as she refuses to leave. Though Meloy leans toward minimalism and a few of the stories seem pinched as a result she is a fluid, confident and talented writer capable of moments of true grace.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Meloy's debut of 15 stories is set mostly in the American West and focuses on its rugged inhabitants. It is their vulnerability that captures Meloy's imagination, as she portrays characters caught in moments of crisis, upheaval, and change. "Ranch Girl," a coming-of-age story, is about a young woman born and raised on a ranch who must choose between staying with her familiar life or going out into the wider world. "Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976" is a tender story about the deep friendship of two couples. The husbands own an underwater welding business, and on a job together one of them drowns. The survivor blames himself for his friend's death and is further guilt-ridden by the attraction he feels for his dead friend's widow. Other stories go beyond the Western milieu, venturing into Europe during World War II and more. Meloy, who has been published in The New Yorker, the Paris Review, and other journals, is in complete control of her material. Her stories have a potent immediacy that makes them believable and heart-wrenching. Recommended. Marcia Tager, Tenafly, NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (May 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743246853
• ISBN-13: 978-0743246859
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #270,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Maile Meloy is the author of the story collection Half in Love and the novel Liars and Saints, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize. Meloy's stories have been published in The New Yorker, and she has received The Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Passion and poetry in so few words, August 20, 2002

By 

"mattyflan" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Half in Love: Stories (Hardcover)

I worry that most young writers today rely on too many words and a sort of pseudo-intellectual babble to make themselves appear competent. That is not the case with Maile Meloy. She simply tells it like it is. While her stories go deep, she does not need to force feed us. We get it. We get it because her characters, her words, and her emotions speak to us directly. If this is what Ms. Meloy can do for the short story, I will hold my breath for her first novel.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Short Story Collection Debut Since George Saunders, July 23, 2002

By 

"50cent-haircut" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Half in Love: Stories (Hardcover)

Maile Meloy writes with clarity, economy and honesty of emotion. Such precision in fiction reminded me of some of Carver's stuff, and if Meloy's writing is to represent some kind of resurgence in minimalism, neo-minimalism or whatever, I'm all for it. (Especially having read some horrible, maximalist 'post-post-modern' fiction of some young American novelists.)

Meloy has an interesting way of unfolding a story. At first, there is an unusual and complex external situation that informs the readers of the characters and setting of the story. And just when the reader expects the story to be about that external situation, Meloy subverts that expectation by telling a story that is more private and introspective. It's a narrative technique that is subtle - one that offers an intelligent and realistic epiphany.

There are some stories when Meloy overreaches and the mechanisms of the story are too transparent. "Ice Harvester", although poetic, reads somewhat like a fiction workshop story that goes through the expositional work only to serve a bland insight. "Paint" also has its effective virtues, but the story of a man dying on his own porch as his wife goes to sleep unaware is too clunky a mechanism to tell a story of a couple who fail to communicate.

Aside from these minor gripes, though, I found these stories profoundly well-written and perfectly judged. And fun to read, as well! "The Last White Slave" is a narrative tour de force, a narrative within a narrative, that tells its tale of morality and character of human love with a propulsive power.

The stories dealing with life in Montana are beautiful as are other stories that take elsewhere, in another time. Meloy writes about big, everyday things - contemplation of mortality, strains of love, and efforts and failures to do good - but writes about these big themes in a colloquial that we can all understand and sympathize with. Her most admirable virtue is the ability to write with a penetrating insight and empathy for her characters - a heartbreaking earnestness for people in general that I haven't encountered in short fiction since George Saunders. This is a work of a major writer.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those who love short stories, July 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Half in Love: Stories (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book. The stories are all great; beautifully observed without being self-consciously literary. How nice to read a new writer who doesn't rely on gimmicks, self-promotion, or trendy topics; just solid and sincere storytelling. The book's flawed characters already feel like old friends. Definitely buy this one now; you may be looking at a classic.