Books > Who Do You Love

Katherine DieckmannThe New York Times Book ReviewA quietly devastating book...few fiction writers working today have more successfully rendered the sensation of solid ground suddenly melting away, pinpointing that instant when the familiar present is swallowed up by an always encroaching past or voided future.

Jack SullivanThe Boston GlobeThis is a contemporary version of the modern epiphany, the moment of illumination, bright or dark, that makes a gray world bearable or unbearable. It doesn't matter that it's been done before, many times, by everyone from Flannery O'Connor to Andre Dubus -- at least not when it's done this beautifully. The consistency and durability of the modern short story is one of the few firm traditions in this century, even if its mission is to depict fracture and loss. In a culture of millennium hype, it's healthy to remind ourselves that the New Age may turn out to be the Old Rut

Carol AnshawNewsdayThe best pieces in this collection are as good as it gets in contemporary fiction. Jean Thompson has long been a writer much admired by other writers; perhaps Who Do You Love will bring her the wider recognition she deserves.

Joan MellenThe Baltimore SunThompson is a wonderful writer. We fall for every one of her characters....[An] outstanding collection.

Fran ZellMilwaukee Journal SentinelJean Thompson examines the tough, often grotesque complexities of love at the end of the millennium and runs head-on into a barnyard of other all-too-familiar animals: loneliness, despair, grief, alienation, violent death. Yet each of the fifteen stories in this volume sparkles like a world unto itself with fresh, vivid language, grippingly real dialogue, suspenseful situations and characters who never let go their belief in love, no matter how thoroughly it eludes them....Yet these are all stories -- themes

Jim TushinskiSan Francisco Bay Guardian Literary SupplementLuminous and heartbreaking...[Thompson is] among the best short-fiction writers working today....With a clearheaded compassion that allows the stories to grow up around them in unpredictable, satisfying ways.

Abby FruchtChicago TribuneWhat makes these stories engaging...? Talent. Compassion. Imagination. Humor. Finesse. Thompson's greatest gift is for layering artistry on top of grit....A writer with a refined grasp of the vocabulary of the dispossessed.

Connecticut Post (Bridgeport)Her tales are as real as life, illuminating the raw core of human needs and human wants.

Publishers WeeklyBest Books of 1999With spare eloquence, Thompson surveys the lives of emotionally dislocated people craving connection, but infuses even the saddest situation with humor and a wry glimmer of hope. The fifteen stories in this collection ring with an unpretentious integrity and a knowledge of human complexities.

Jeff GilesNewsweek Like Raymond Carver, Thompson is fascinated by the sudden and unlikely communion of people. Her characters vary

Bernadette MurphyBookThompson traverses the desolate wilderness of love and thwarted desire within the human soul....[She provides] sharp lenses with which to view the uncertain nature of humanity under the most arduous conditions.

Michele LeberBooklistIn just a few pages Thompson insinuates us into her characters' lives and makes us care about them.

Julia AlvarezAuthor of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their AccentsFor my money, Jean Thompson is one of the best contemporary writers of the short story

Gina BerriaultAuthor of Women in Their BedsSome of these stories are unforgettable -- "The Lost Child," for one

Richard BauschAuthor of Rare and Endangered SpeciesMs. Thompson can turn into anyone, anywhere, anyplace, from the inside out; she imagines so fully, with such fidelity to experience, that one is left breathless reading her. Her vision is tough, without being negative or unkind. Her prose is exact; utterly convincing, suggestive, sensual, and powerful.

Antonya NelsonAuthor of Nobody's GirlWho Do You Love is impressive for the sheer volume of strong prose. Jean Thompson writes with humor and insight and toughmindedness. [These] stories, without exception, leave the reader with the sensation of having seen a ghost: haunted, thrilled, and more alert to the wide weird world.