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Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction | 
 enlarge | Author: Amy Bloom
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $5.00
You Save: $20.00 (80%)
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Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 5359
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 1400063574
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400063574
ASIN: 1400063574
Publication Date: January 12, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9781400063574 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
Love, in its many forms and complexities, weaves through this collection by Amy Bloom, the New York Times bestselling author of Away. Bloom's astonishing and astute new work of interconnected stories illuminates the mysteries of passion, family, and friendship.
Propelled by Bloom's dazzling prose, unmistakable voice, and generous wit, Where the God of Love Hangs Out takes us to the margins and the centers of real people's lives, exploring the changes that love and loss create. A young woman is haunted by her roommate's murder; a man and his daughter-in-law confess their sins in the unlikeliest of places. In one quartet of interlocking stories, two middle-aged friends, married to others, find themselves surprisingly drawn to each other, risking all while never underestimating the cost. In another linked set of stories, we follow mother and son for thirty years as their small and uncertain family becomes an irresistible tribe.
Insightful, sensuous, and heartbreaking, these stories of passion and disappointment, life and death, capture deep human truths. As The New Yorker has said, "Amy Bloom gets more meaning into individual sentences than most authors manage in whole books."
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| Customer Reviews:
 Loved Reading About Love July 25, 2010
lawliss (New Hampshire)
I haven't been put off simply because my last foray was just plain awful! I picked up Amy Bloom's newest edition of short stories and I wasn't disappointed at all.
This collection of short stories looks at a few different families who must deal with certain common American themes: they often must deal with death, aging, love (or the lack of it) and children moving away. But the one common silver thread in all of these stories is strength: strength to leave or stay, to stand up for what you believe is the right thing to do. Of all the families that she focussed on, my favorite was about Julia, a white woman, who marries Lionel, a black musician with a son from a previous marriage. I loved following this family through all of its tumultuous events.
Amy Bloom is an extraordinary writer. She manages to hook you with the very first words that she writes and manages to keep you interested throughout her entire story. The words that she uses were obviously carefully considered and the joy that I got out of them were immeasurable. That sort of care goes a long way. I wouldn't go into this expecting a completely happy picture of marriage or love or relationships, however. This is a somewhat bittersweet and sometimes unhappy view of the institution.
Overall though, wonderful!
Rebelling against "normal" love. July 7, 2010
jmz (Fremont, ca United States)
Amy Bloom never seems to write about the kind of love found in romance novels, but, as we all know, those types of stories are merely fantasy, something we like to throw ourselves into to pretend it is real and it is we who are the characters.
No, this does not interest Bloom. What interests her is the type of love that is based on yearning or loss or absence of something or someone. It's atypical. It's not...normal. And that is why I love reading Bloom's stories.
In this collection of short stories, you'll find a woman and man desperately needing each other while married. They sneak, cheat and lie, but eventually come together. You'll feel the longing, the need, the sadness, the loss. We are not perfect animals. We need and want and some of us are brave (and maybe stupid) enough to go out and take what we want.
You'll also find a more taboo subject in this book -- incest? Is that what we can call it? I guess it is. It is a quick love built out of death and loss and need to feel something. It is a love that crushes relationships and tears people apart. Can it be overcome? You'll have to read and see.
I love Bloom's take on love. Her characters are real and wonderfully developed. Her words flow and vibrate with emotions we've all felt but maybe don't talk about. Her stories can be shocking, but she's not writing them for shock value. All these things are there in our world; Bloom is just brave enough to write about it.
"Every Death Is Violent" May 19, 2010
Mr. August (Highland Park, IL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of Bloom's stories in this eclectic compilation starts out with my title for this review. It was a shocking first sentence but Bloom supported this pronouncement with a rather gruesome story and the deaths described were indeed brutal and vicious. Each story in this excellent collection shocked me with Bloom's ability to look into a person or a family and pull out the meaning of love and ultimately, death. She is one of the most capable writers and her short stories are ones that could be studied for literary technique and narrative excellence.
Bloom tackled all types of love. The most impressive story was the one of Julia, a white woman, who marries a black musician. The have one child together and she accepts his son from another marriage as her own, and much more. Julia's love affair with her children and extended family depicts a strong, sexual woman who is capable of love on many levels. Bloom gives us unforgettable characters in either common or surreal situations.
Another story I will likely not forget concerns a widower and his two children, who almost hate him. In spite of their disapproval of how he treated their mother, they perform their duty and see to his welfare. There is a Jewish edge to this story, one of guilt and some despair - very insightful.
This small anthology is quite an achievement and places Bloom at the top of fictional literary talent. Short stories are difficult to write. There usually is an abrupt ending or no ending at all. Bloom seems to manage both techniques with panache.
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