Written when the author was in his twenties, these strong, affecting tales recall the intoxicating joy of young, springtime love, while lamenting the betrayal of dreams and false ideals in the glaring light of reality. Set in the Midwest during the 1950s, First Love and Other Sorrows centers around a Jewish family that has recently lost its patriarch-and with him the world of privilege. These short stories filled with “narrative grace and rare craftsmanship ” chronicle the loss of innocence and the anguish of young love ( San Francisco Chronicle ).įirst Love and Other Sorrows is the hauntingly beautiful debut collection of short stories from American master Harold Brodkey. In all of these stories, several of which were completed in the last months of his life, Harold Brodkey proves that there has never been a more acute translator of the language of power, coercion, and, ultimately, love. and Lila, where unstated threats lurk behind kind words, and where a gentle parental touch carries more than a hint of seduction. And he takes us back to the Silenowicz family, Wiley, S.L. He returns to themes he has treated so memorably in the past – the malevolence of cocktail-party conversation, the conformity and stupefying monotony of suburbia – bringing to them a new refinement and compression. In this collection, Harold Brodkey displays all his remarkable gifts – his exquisite authorial control, his unerring attentiveness to the subtle dynamics of sexual power, and his remarkable ability to depict the perils and perversities of family life. The final short story collection that completes the extraordinary literary voyage of Harold Brodkey, a modern master of short fiction his most forceful and incisive collection of all. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice.

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Innocence harold brodkey book