So This Is Love

By Gilbert Reid and Gilbert Reid

Book Overview

In an overcrowded hospital in war-torn Bosnia, a Muslim soldier and a young Serbian womanone crippled, the other blindfind solace in each other in Pavilion 24. In small-town Ontario, a father and daughter relive the summer when a mysterious, ethereal girl entered their lives and a brutal assault changed everything. In an apartment peopled with an eclectic mix of bohemian ex-patriots, a man pursues a young suicidal waif at the height of the sexual revolution in 1970s Paris. So this is love. This is squalor. From Paris to Italy to Bosnia to rural Ontario, these nine stories take the reader on a journey of love, sex, violence and the politics of desire. Here, memory and longing serve as a catalyst to truth and identity, and offer respite from a world gone achingly numb. Madly romantic, subtly subversive and utterly accomplished, Gilbert Reids collection is about love in all of its formssometimes sad, sometimes harsh, sometimes perverse, but always, always beautiful.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1552636364
• ISBN13: 9781552636367
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Key Porter Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.9" x 0.6" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Startling, haunted, and undeniably witty

I am not a short story reader. I read ravenously and thus prefer to consume entire novels as they seem to pass so quickly, but SO THIS IS LOVE, made me fall in love with short stories. Each one is so unique, and the prose so beautifully written, you can't help but want to stay in one of Reid's many worlds forever. I could go on for paragraphs abou thow much I love this collection, instead I prefer to say one thing--you will not regret purchasing, borrowing, or reading this collection, just get your hands on it. It's too exquisite not to have on your shelf.

wide look at love, but not from a romance novel's perspective

This nine story collection provides a wide look at love, but not from a romance novel's perspective. Each tale is interesting, but the best are those involving love that comes out of the ashes of hatred and misery like the haunting first story "Pavilion 24", which the audience will read twice and stop for the night because it is haunting. War plays a matchmaking role in several of the contributions as Gilbert Reid makes the case that out of the seeds of dissension and strife love can still blossom (think Romeo and Juliet), but loss can also follow. A couple of the tales turn too literary for this compilation; this makes them seem like they do not belong as the sense of a wretched place is lacking though ironically they are well written. However, for the most part readers will peruse several times these fascinating tales of love out of the ruins of hate and despair even when there is no happily ever after. Harriet Klausner