Love Like That Stories

A highly anticipated debut, Love Like That is a collection of nine darkly playful and moving stories about brilliant, broken women trying and finding their places in the world Populated by misfits and misanthropes, bickering sisters, responsible daughters, and unhappy wives, the stories in Emma Duffy-Comparone’s collection challenge us in the face of abandonment, illness, and tragedy to look at the world with wonder and amusement. Here, one woman on the brink of becoming a stepmother wonders whether she can love the eight-year-old boy (the Kid) who has a stranglehold on her boyfriend’s affections. Another grapples with how to build a life after sickening trauma for which she is responsible. A sister visits her brother, only to watch him live through a gruesome accident. In these stories, Duffy-Comparone does not shy away from suffering—nor does she disguise the experiences that can accompany horror: deep humor, or searing, unpredictable beauty. Slyly, wickedly funny and brimming with truth, she writes about family—biological, chosen, and decidedly not-chosen—with audacity, withering sharpness, and heart.