The Brutal Language of Love: Stories

by Alicia Erian

Book Overview

Alicia Erian's characters are brave, disarming, affectionate, and deeply flawed. They inhabit the not-so-very-wide space between a good intention and a bad outcome. In "Alcatraz," we meet a middle-school spelling champion who spends her afternoons taking baths with the boy next door. In "Almonds and Cherries," a young woman turns an unexpectedly arousing bra-shopping experience into a short film, with ramifications for everyone around her...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416592717
• ISBN13: 9781416592716
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

great collection from a stirring new voice

let me start by saying that this is the only book i have ever felt compelled to review on this site, and probably will be the only one for quite some time. picking up this book was an impulse buy, as i violated two main rules in purchasing it: firstly, i don't buy authors i haven't heard of; and secondly, i shy away from women in contemporary fiction because i have gotten burned way too much in the last few years. that being said, this collection is one of the finest that i have read in my life. the protagonists are all empowered females, so the book has a feminist flair, but what is most interesting about the presentation is the decidedly anti-feminist undercurrent. erian never leaves things clear cut. when her characters makes conscious decisions that empower them, that allow them to flaunt their power and their sexuality, i found myself cringing because while these are powerful decisions, they are not exactly the right ones, and the characters know it. there is a self-destruction in the exercising of their femininity that is at once wholly new, unexpected, admirable, and tragic. erian's prose is economic and careful, and her stories taunt the reader with abrupt endings and open interpretation. she will end a story right as she leads up to a confrontation that has been building for fifteen pages, and it is here that she empowers her reader, by allowing them to take an active role in ending the story. based on what we have read, we know in our hearts how the story will end based on what we drew from the body of the prose; but our endings will all be different. erian's voice is immediate and achingly contemporary...it makes fare like the canon of oprah's book club seem inept and maudlin. this is power in storytelling. i can't wait for her upcoming novel.

Left to their own devices...

Left to their own devices the women of Alicia Arian's first collection of short stories often willfully set down the wrong path as a way to feel more alive, even if the consequences are dire. Her heroines are self absorbed, masochists but somehow we, as readers, are compelled to stick with them through the ugliness that is all too familiar. Arian delves into the shameful moments that all of us share without moral proselytizing. She engages us through her acerbic wit and an assured hand. One after the other, each of her stories is a tart treat. Damged goods never were so prized.

The Languish of Love

While love's language is brutal, Erian's prose is seductive and provocative. Erian has a unique and somehow genuine way of entering other people's lives, carefully and forgivingly. Her tone is reminiscent of Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff, her tales of J.D. Salinger and Skeeter Pullman.She is at once literary and colloquial. This makes for some very compelling reading.Erian writes with an honesty that is as refreshing as it is painful.Lingering and bemusing. An exceptional debut.

finally, a female character I believe--real

I picked up this book when it came out, and could not put it down! The female characters are strong and awkward, afraid and courageous. What a pleasure to read about females who are not all prissy or all "manly." Erian gives us a book that touches on issues that we live with everyday, and writes in such precise narrative style that's sure to beg the public for a second book. Maybe a novel?

Simply Fantastic

If you could somehow meld Philip Roth with Carson McCullers, you might get close to the wit and compassion Alicia Erian demonstrates in her first collection of short stories. Then again, Erian's voice is so incisive and orginal, she almost defies comparison. The stories in The Brutal Language of Love don't bother with niceties, striking right to the heart of things people are afraid to say out loud. But there's none of the world-weary pessimism and pseuo-sophistication that plagues so much contemporary fiction: Erian's protagonists are heartbreakingly human, and her prose never sells them short. This book is as entertaining as it is deep, as charming as it is disturbing.If you like to read even a little bit, you'll be thrilled by this wonderful new voice in fiction.