Love Stories in This Town

First lines are the handshakes writers give their readers.

As we slide into the story, we’ll always remember that first impression of the opening sentences’ firm, self-assured grip. If we don’t remember those first lines, it’s probably because the author gave us a clammy, limp-fingered greeting. In her debut story collection, Love Stories in This Town, novelist Amanda Eyre Ward has no problem with “gripping” first lines.

Readers familiar with Ward’s previous works of fiction—the novels Sleep Toward Heaven, How to Be Lost and Forgive Me--already know she can plot herself out of a paper bag with ease. With a relaxed, witty writing style, she has a way of burrowing right to the heart of her characters—ordinary folks who show more find themselves caught in the turbulence of unexpected circumstances. The same holds true for Love Stories in This Town. The majority of the tales on these pages open like a racehorse bursting from the chute.

I have always been a sucker for first sentences. I can distinctly remember specific moments in my life when the breath was sucked from my lungs by Raymond Carver (My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right.—“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”) and Richard Ford (All of this that I am about to tell happened when I was only fifteen years old, in 1959, the year my parents were divorced, the year when my father killed a man and went to prison for it, the year I left home and school, told a lie about my age to fool the Army, and then did not come back. The year, in other words, when life changed for all of us and forever—ended, really, in a way none of us could ever have imagined in our most brilliant dreams of life.—“Optimists”).

Ward, in my humble opinion, is their equal (at least in the First Lines Dept.). The dozen tales in Love Stories in This Town are sharp-focused family snapshots, catching husbands, wives, children, parents, lovers and ex-lovers in moments of confusion, hope, paranoia, delight, resentment and all the other ingredients of the human stew.

A young couple still reeling from a miscarriage searches for a new home in a strange town. In another story, it’s the anticipation of a pregnancy that provides the suspense as a young woman working at a dot-com tries to sort out her feelings of motherhood. Lola, the character at the center of connected stories in the book’s second half, spends most of her life looking for her place in life. The pall of 9/11 hangs over several of the stories, as do the dark clouds of romance. Yes, I said “dark clouds.” Despite the breezy nature of Ward’s style, there’s an underlying effort to strip away the happy, shiny veneer of love, Hollywood-style. The title of the book, after all, is taken from a line of dialogue spoken by a cynical bartender: “There are no love stories in this town.”

I could go on at length about the many charms of the book, but I’ll just use this space to pinpoint some of Ward’s excellent opening lines:

They told us the baby was dead, and two days later we were on a plane to Texas. (“The Stars Are Bright in Texas”)

A woman had drowned in the lake, but that did not make it any less picturesque. (“On Messalonskee Lake”)

I had heard about the rib, of course, but did not expect it to be at the Smiths’ Christmas party. Yet there it was, on the mantel, sandwiched between a bowl of cinnamon-scented potpourri and a holly sprig. Merry Christmas! Here’s our daughter’s rib. (“The Way the Sky Changed”)

The man Lola loved wasn’t marrying her, and she didn’t know what to wear to the wedding. (“Miss Montana’s Wedding Day”)

Lola thought the baby shower would be canceled due to the beheading, but she was wrong. (“Motherhood and Terrorism”)

And this, from my favorite story in the collection—“Butte as in Beautiful”—which, if memory serves me right, was the very first sentence of Ward’s I ever read, years ago when someone sent me a link to an on-line version of the story. The rest of the story, as with all of the other examples I cited above, more than fulfills that tantalizing handshake promise of the opening words. I dare anyone to stop reading after a sentence like this:

It’s a crappy coincidence that on the day James asks for my hand in marriage, there is a masturbator loose in the library. show less

I absolutely adore Ward's novels, but I admit I struggled with this collection--especially in the first half, where both tone and theme feel overly repetitive, the focus placed so much on pregnancy/getting pregnant as it is. In fact, that's a theme throughout the whole of the collection, far more so than motherhood, and I might not have picked up the collection if that had been made more clear on the cover copy. Still, I did finish the work, and there are some stand-out stories. "The Way the Sky Changed" is especially powerful, and there's also a lot to admire in the linked stories making up the second half of the collection. That said, I'm not sure I'd pick up another collection by Ward. Her prose brings characters to life beautifully, show more but the depth she brings to novels adds more than slice-of-life, she brings so much depth to even the simplest stories, and that depth just didn't translate into her short stories. Perhaps part of that is how repetitive the tone and themes felt from story to story, but as it stands, I just didn't enjoy this collection all that much.

If you want to give Ward a try, pick up one of her novels and it might well make you a fan of her for life, but unless you specifically want pregnancy-themed women's fiction short stories that all strike loosely the same note, I have to recommend leaving this collection on the shelf, lovely as Ward's prose may be. show less

Love Stories in This Town is a smart and insightful look at women and the infinite number of ways they love. There are women loving their husbands, boyfriends, parents, and babies. There are women leaving for love or staying, being heartbroken or up-lifted, letting go of their dreams or clinging to them fiercely. The breadth of the stories is impressive and yet Amanda Eyre Ward somehow manages to get the feel in each one right. The stories are sharp, but also a little mysterious and beautiful, like love itself.

I especially liked the series of stories about Lola, following her through life as she experiences different kinds of love and as her love for each person in her life matures and changes. I felt like each story offered up a show more subtle lesson and I often could relate to what the characters were going through. I didn't love this book quite as much as Amanda Ward Eyre's novels, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. show less

These stories are not sweet, sappy, saccharine, predictable. Ward has delved in the psyches of different types of people and really brought out the cold hard truth of relationships. I enjoyed every story in this collection. Plenty of surprises throughout. I laughed. I could relate. Sometimes if I didn't, Ward finds a way to make me empathize with the characters. She really does an excellent job with Love Stories in This Town. I highly recommend it.

Now i thought this would fill my love tank but she highlights the reality of relationships, how love is more than gush! Quite refreshing from just a young writer.

Not a gigantic short stories fan, but I have enjoyed everything else that Amanda Eyre Ward has written so I gave it a try. She can really capture characters and feelings exactly.

I love Ward's novels. Her story collection not so much. I really wish I could say I liked this book because I'm a huge fan of the author's other work but these stories are all a little vacant feeling.