Published: 01/04/2010
ISBN: 9781847082787
Granta Books
208 pages

Where The God Of Love Hangs Out

Amy Bloom

A young woman struggles to come to terms with her friend’s murder; a man and his daughter-in-law confess their sins in the most unlikely of places; a daughter returns to her hated father’s house to care for him in his final days and discovers an unexpected bond; and, in a set of interlocking stories, two middle-aged friends, married to others, find themselves irresistibly sexually drawn to one another. In this sensuous, funny and heartbreaking new book, Amy Bloom explores the unexpected patterns that love, and its absence, weave into our lives. With her generous and clear-eyed understanding of human complexity and contrariness, the award-winning author introduces us to some of her most unforgettable characters yet.

Her sentences are clear and inviting, her plots have arcs, and moment by moment the stories ring emotionally true. This is unrelentingly pleasurable fiction ... Bloom's writing manages to be at once light and grave. She treats her characters with a seriousness that makes them real. That is the odd, neat trick of all good fiction

Lionel Shriver, Financial Times

Her characters are very believable, of the moment, and also original and surprising. Above all, her writing is lovely: the words sparkle along, in the speedy river of wit which is almost a hallmark of the contemporary American short story. It's a highly entertaining style, and the juxtaposition of that wisecracking Woody Allen-ish voice with profound insights into the human heart is highly effective ... This is a great piece of fiction, thought provoking, and highly entertaining

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Irish Times

[She writes about middle age] as though it were as delicious and exhilarating as youth (which, in its way, it is - if only anyone but Bloom had noticed) ... Her writing is so distilled, so economical and clever and muscular and affectionate that even as you wish there was more of it, really you know that she has said everything there is to say, quite perfectly

Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph

The Author

Amy Bloom is the author of three collections of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Granta, 2010), Come to Me and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, also published in one volume Rowing to Eden(Granta, 2015), a collection of essays, Normal, and four novels, White Houses (Granta, 2018) Lucky Us (Granta, 2014), Away (Granta, 2007),and Love Invents Us. She is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University.