Customer Reviews

Who Do You Love: Stories

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is appalling that a writer of Jean Thompson's talent needs to have her book nominated for the National Book Award before a store like Borders will carry more than one copy of her work. It is appalling as well, that said store will only carry copies of the work that was nominated, not her other two short story collections or two novels. I read her original collection of short stories, "The Gasoline Wars," about ten years ago and was extremely impressed. I wasn't even aware of the three published works in between that and this newest collection.

"Who Do You Love" is a fantastic collection of stories dealing with sad individuals, at difficult times in their lives, reacting to various stages of their latest love interests. The collection takes us through various landscapes, from the northwest rainy Oregon all the way to the grubby southeast states. The individuals vary from young to old; the only constants being the state of sadness, and the fact that the reader cares about them.

It is Thompson's use of language that is most impressive. There are times where she goes above and beyond what you would expect in her character dialogues or descriptions. There is a specific point that you find yourself believing most writers would have stopped, but she goes on and does so successfully. Only a confident writer would go this far. As an observer, she obviously has a tremendous ear. You find yourself re-reading full sections of her work just in appreciation of her art. She is by no means a minimalist but she does not waste a word. The stories have an intelligence to them and while melancholy in nature, there is a stunning use of wit as well.

Search out her work and put it on your shelf next to the Huddle's and Bell's and others who have mastered this craft.

5 stars.

Recently nominated for the National Book Award for fiction, this collection deserves its honors. I was blown away. Thompson's strength is her ability to choose details from the palette of life and apply them carefully to a story's canvas. From these pieces emerge fully fleshed people caught in moments of heartache and then moving on. Never "telling" us anything, she shows it all through wonderful language. This diverse collection shows her range--no two stories sound alike. I consider that an achievement, considering these stories were written over a period of several years. She's a writer who doesn't go back to the same well, but moves on. That's great.

Though Jean Thompson was nominated for the National Book Award last year (and should have won, in my opinion), it is almost bewildering to me that her work is not as well-known as some of her contemporaries. This collection is a masterpiece by a writer whose sensibility blends dark and gritty subject matter with sublime language -- a bit like Alice Munro in tone, though at once both more stylized and more viscerally felt, unlikely as that may seem. The opening piece, "All Shall Love Me and Despair" (which was included in the 1996 Best American Short Stories) is as gorgeous as the Oregon coast that is its setting, as unsettling as its compassionate depiction of the character Scout's battles with heroin addiction, and as heartfelt as the woman, Annie, who tries to love him. Another fine piece is the story "Mercy," a close character portrait of a nightshift police officer and his relationship or lack thereof with a tough, unforgiving woman whose reckless son dies in a car accident. The 15 stories collected in this book date as far back as 1988 and represent a substantial body of work that deserves great acclaim and attention. I can't say enough about Thomspson's stories. They are simply marvelous.

Jean Thompson's Who Do You Love is an incredible collection of short stories featuring lives in various states of repair. Her turn of phrase is absolutely remarkable--I found myself re-reading paragraphs just to savor the stunning expression. The reader cares about every character. This collection is a real work of art--if I worked in a bookstore, I would press this book into the hands of every intelligent customer who loves Alice Hoffman, Elizabeth Berg, Barbara Kingsolver, and Flannery O'Connor. Thank you, Jean Thompson!

This book is excellently written. The prose is beautiful and the characters are expansive. Many of the characters have their misfortunes happening at some other time and place and are currently just getting by in the daily grind of a disappointing life. The landscapes in the book are various and wonderful, stretching from Oregon's drippy coastline to the south east.

The characters themselves range from young children to grandparents, all with challenging preoccupations that inform and color the stories. The stories are organized in the TOC as "Who We Love," "Other Lives," and "Spirits." It seems that every character in the book has a measure of each of these qualities: life is continuous though love may not be, for whatever reason, and the sense of spirit is integral to the characters and landscapes. The author's organization of the stories helps a lot to convey a sense of the progression and permeability of sadness.

A sense of melancholy and loss saturates both the landscapes and the characters who inhabit them, even when they seem to be enjoying themselves. It is for the sadness alone that I rated the book at three stars.

The stories I liked best were: The Amish, Antarctica, Poor Helen, Forever, and All Shall Love Me and Despair.

An incredible collection of short stories; Thompson is easily able to write in the voice of many women and isn't repetitive or trite. Her stories are meaningful and thoughtful. I really enjoyed reading this and would recommend it to others, as an example of how a good short story is written, as well as for the depth and realism of her writing.

This must be in your library. Thompson's prose is simple and easy, yet nuanced and haunting. Each short story is its own, self-contained world that belongs to the reader as much as the characters.

Who do you love?

From Judy Applebee, a disenfranchised social worker from the title story, to Helen Harper, a lonely bar fly wearing the wrong hats, Jean Thompson peoples her stories with characters that offer glimpses into their personal lives; lives laced with the intelligent misery of truth and circumstances. Her characters are a rare breed of survivor, they cling to whatever bits of floating debris they can find after the ship has gone down. Thompson treats us to their sharp wit, and insight into suffering and compassion. When Judy's friends talk about how virtuous it is to be a social worker we are told, "But Judy knew better. Her office did not solve anyone's problems. It only took the edge off misery so tht misery could be endured."
I'm a great "first sentence of the story" fan and listen to some of the jewels in this collection: from "The Widower," The doorbell rang, and Campbell's wife shouted from upstairs that she was in the middle of shaving her legs, could he get it? and this one from "Mother Nature," The dog had some kind of allergy that made him chew his skin down to bacon.
I haven't read Jean Thompson's earlier work, but I plan to after reading this collection, and I look forward to more stories from her.

I read this book with the greatest admiration and pleasure. The astounding precision of language, the intelligence, the marvelous wit all combine to make Jean Thompson one of the best writers publising today. Finally, a book worth reading.

Jean Thompson's Who Do You Love is an excellent collection of stories-well-written, funny, engaging. The stories all take place somewhere in middle America--I'm picturing Indiana, Illinois. The characters are essentially losers--no one is a smashing success, everyone is flawed, yet the stories are not depressing. Reading them is like looking at the underside of a rock. You know these people are out there, they are just not in your world all the time--but look closely and they are fascinating. Enjoy.