Name: The News from Spain
ISBN: 9780307958884

Joan Wickersham

A virtuosic collection of stories that explores the power of love and the impossibility of controlling or understanding it features characters from various times and regions, from Mozart's 18th-century collaboration with librettist Da Ponte to a 1940s love triangle involving a doctor, a journalist and a President's wife. By the National Book Award finalist author of The Suicide Index. 25,000 first printing.

Seven Variations on a Love Story

The News from Spain

Daryl Houston

I forget where I first encountered Wickersham's work; I think it may have been a story in a recent issue one story. I've come across a few authors featured in that little magazine whose work I've gone on to follow. 

I was a little disappointed when I read the first story in The News from Spain. It was kind of dull, a story about infidelity and the difficulty of reconciliation. It seemed almost like a romance drama, if thankfully a few notches higher in terms of quality than the classic bodice ripper. But as I kept reading, the stories began to appeal to me more and more. They became in some cases stories about how stories are made, and there was here and there a touch of the avant garde -- or at least the nonconventional -- about them. Several of the stories also were quite dark, with sort of gut-punch endings that appealed to me.

Wickersham writes well, and though I don't think there was much in the book that I found especially inspiring (meaning: her work doesn't make me want to try writing my own stuff, which the fiction that most appeals to me does tend to do), I think there are some really good stories in the book. I'm glad I read it and will likely read more by her.

The News from Spain Seven Variations on a Love Story

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