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Darling?
Heidi Jon Schmidt. Picador USA: 2001 (hardcover). ISBN: 0312281781. 245 pages.
Guide not available
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Take a close look at the Rorschach blot on Schmidt's cover.
What you see may say something about your perspective on love.
Do you see a human heart, a fragile rose petal, a bloody mess?
Come to think of it, Schmidt's stories are kind of like a
Roschach blot: it's hard to decide if they're heart-warming,
scathing, funny, or tragic. The collection begins with the
tale of a complicated love between sisters that reaches a
climax over a charbroiled feast of songbirds (yum!) and closes
with another story of familial love, a story that ends with
the bittersweet laughter of lovers at a funeral party. As one
admiring writer points out, Schmidt's stories address "the
frustrating, hilarious, embarrassing, transcendental business
of living with love." Schmidt's wit is brilliant, her themes
provocative, her female characters terribly flawed and
wonderfully sympathetic. It's tough to write about love and
have anything new to say, but Schmidt does just that. If
Valentine's Day wearies you with the numbing cliches of love
that litter Hallmark cards, pick up Darling? and
remember that love is more than just a many-splendered thing.
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