The Nature of Longing

By Alyce Miller

Book Overview

The eight stories in The Nature of Longing move beyond conventional boundaries of race and gender to explore the universal desire to belong. Avoiding easy answers, Alyce Miller probes the overlapping worlds of blacks, whites, gays, and straights, all caught in the ordinary human struggle to connect with parents, spouses, lovers, friends, and children. In the title story, a gay librarian in upstate New York is cruelly outed but finds comfort in the letter of a man he's never met. In Color Struck, a black mother in East Oakland struggles with her inability to name, and thus to accept, her albino daughter. In Summer in Detroit, a black man, visiting his ailing white grandmother, is forced to relive a personal tragedy that occurred during the 1967 riots. The novella that closes the book, Dead Women, examines a young American woman's search in Europe for romance that lasts beyond desire. Miller gives substance to her characters' poignant longing, which manifests itself in unexpected ways.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393313794
• ISBN13: 9780393313796
• Release Date: November 1995
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

THOUGHTFUL, PROVOCATIVE, PRECISELY PENNED

These eight marvelously wrought stories by 1993 Flannery O'Connor Award winner Alyce Miller span gender, race and culture to present portraits of human beings attempting to belong. The opening story, "Tommy," is a delicate yet deeply expressed tale of a young black man and his mother, who could not come to terms with his homosexuality. It is also about Marsha and Calvin, his betrayal of her, and the lessons she learned. Early in "Tommy" the theme of this and the following stories emerges, it is our common need to be a part of another: "There are people who remain connected to us throughout our lives, who seem to follow a similar trajectory, more often through accident than design." "Off Season Travel" finds two couples, each feeling cut off, isolated; they come together in a Mexican resort town. A searing recreation of the 1967 Detroit riots is background for "Summer in Detroit." Thoughtful, provocative, disturbing, precisely penned are the stories of Alyce Miller.

Wonderful

Washington Post Book World "Miller .. [has a] talent for portraying adolescent moodiness and interracial confusion .... nicely subtle ... marvelously Southern in temperament ... What Miller brings to her narratives of black culture is unique, not because the characters are extraordinary, but because she makes them so particular. Whatever our own experience, we recognize and understand them. Her characters are richly complicated and intriguing, and her language lively and fresh." New York Times Book Review "Alyce Miller's collection of stories explores the nature of longing, conditioned by absence, loss, disappointment, and difference. Impressive ... with traditional narrative techniques and lyrical language, THE NATURE OF LONGING convincingly presents a variety of complex characters, all of whom yearn for what they lack - and in that lack define their common humanity."Denver Post "This collection of 8 short stories won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction this year. It's a perfect selection. Miller crafts her characters with simple strokes that reveal much. It's easy to get so caught up in these people that it comes as a surprise when the stories stop ... If you have some experience in living, what happens to them has happened to you, too, in some way. We'll be looking for more of Miller."