Who Do You Love: Stories

Rating:
Summary: Who Do You Love...Characters you will love.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Finally some recognition
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A stunningly beautiful collection
Review: 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.