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    Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction
    Unavailable
    Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction
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    Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction
    Audiobook7 hours

    Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction

    Written by Amy Bloom

    Narrated by Susan Ericksen

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Love, in its many forms and complexities, weaves through this collection by Amy Bloom, the New York Times bestselling author of Away. Bloom's astonishing and astute new work of connected stories illuminates the mysteries of passion, family, and friendship.

    Propelled by Bloom's dazzling prose, unmistakable voice, and generous wit, Where the God of Love Hangs Out takes us to the margins and the centers of real people's lives, exploring the changes that love and loss create. A young woman is haunted by her roommate's murder; a man and his daughter-in-law confess their sins in the unlikeliest of places. In one quartet of interlocking stories, two middle-aged friends, married to others, find themselves surprisingly drawn to each other, risking all while never underestimating the cost. In another linked set of stories, we follow mother and son for thirty years as their small and uncertain family becomes an irresistible tribe.

    Insightful, sensuous, and heartbreaking, these stories of passion and disappointment, life and death, capture deep human truths. As The New Yorker has said, "Amy Bloom gets more meaning into individual sentences than most authors manage in whole books."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 12, 2010
    ISBN9781441831224
    Unavailable
    Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction
    Author

    Amy Bloom

    Amy Bloom is the author of a novel, Love Invents Us, and two collections of stories: Come to Me, nominated for a National Book Award, and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly , Vogue, Slate, and Salon, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, is an exploration of the varieties of gender. She lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale University.

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    Reviews for Where the God of Love Hangs Out

    3.5/5

    30 ratings28 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Wonderful writing, interesting subject matter. The first four stories blew me away -- both in the quality of the prose and in the subject matter (old people with love lives!). The rest of the stories weren't so wonderful, but they were still quite good. I highly recommend this lovely little collection.
    • 2/5
      I enjoyed the stories for the most part, but I listened to the audio version, and I honestly felt confused at times when one story ended and another began. I got distracted trying to figure out whether or not the stories were connected or who was narrating, etc.
    • 4/5
      As the title might reveal, this book of short stories is about love, its complexities and its power. Amy Bloom write an unromanticized account of love and where one might find it. I found her writing to be clear and beautiful, but she definitely pushes the envelope with some of her stories. I wasn't quite ready to follow her there when she did. I suppose I did not enjoy the book as much because I wasn't expecting short stories. I suspect readers who really like the high-brow literary fiction might like this book--as I was reading it I thought of all sorts of essay questions, as if I were reading this for a class.
    • 3/5
      Amy Bloom is a gifted storyteller, a master of her craft, and a writer of what I call approachable and readable short stories. Her prose is refreshing because it’s not as experimental or edgy as many other contemporary short story writers. Her previous collection Come to Me ranks as one of the best I’ve ever read. Her writing is lush, evocative and melodic, like a novel that has been condensed, with enticing and unforgettable characters. Her stories are soulful, brim with color and affection, toasty, like sitting fireside with a close friend who breaks all the rules, affairs, unorthodox family and sexual relationships, behavior on the fringe, but who is still very human.Bloom’s latest collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, is well written, tight, her craft is evident, but the stories lack the magic, luster and brilliance of her previous collections. They’re not as raw or revelatory, the voice is not as immediate; the characters don’t stay with you long after you’ve turned the page. The two best stories I found in the collection are Your Borders, Your Rivers, Your Tiny Villages about middle-aged friends who become lovers and then marry to dire consequences, and Sleepwalking about a mother who becomes intimate with her stepson, and the familial dynamic that ensues. The first four stories are linked stories about the previously mentioned couple William and Clare, and Sleepwalking is accompanied by three other linked stories, following the mother Julia and her stepson Lionel throughout the yearsBloom’s new story collection was highly praised and reviewed by critics, but for me, a far cry from her signature style.
    • 4/5
      It's Amy Bloom! Of course it is good!
    • 2/5
      Not really what I thought it was going to be. Even though it was pretty short, I still had a hard time getting through it. I'm sure it was supposed to represent real life, but I didn't care about the characters and their affairs or childhoods or anything. :/
    • 3/5
      I thought this was a well written collection of short stories, but struggled to enjoy what I was reading. I did not like the subject matter in several of the stories, and found myself racing to get the book over instead of wishing it would last longer. Obviously I am in the minority here, since the other reviews are positive, but I did not enjoy this collection, though I can appreciate Amy Bloom's talent and writing.
    • 2/5
      I have read other Amy Bloom books and like them but this short story collection was one of my least favorite reads in a very long time. I could barely finish it. Some stories were better than others but I expected them to link together somehow and they seemed very disconnected and depressing. No characters were ever set up enough to really feel apart of the book. I was very hard to get attached to any story because it ended too abruptly before the characters were developed enough.
    • 2/5
      Having read several of Amy Bloom's short story collections and a couple of her books, including her most recent novel Away, I found this short story collection disappointing. I consider it my least favorite of her works. The writing is good but none of these stories have the kind of impact of earlier stories such as "Love is Not a Pie", which made such an impression on me that years later, I still remember the story line and what the title refers to. If you enjoy short stories and have never read Amy Bloom before, you may enjoy this; but if like me, you are a fan of her work, you will likely find it lacking. If you are looking for a great short story collection, I would recommend Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro. She is a master of the short story and her most recent collection is truly outstanding.
    • 2/5
      Where the God of Love Hangs Out By Amy Bloom. This novel is a collaboration of short stories. (This is not explicit on the book flap) Some story lines continue for a few chapters, others do not, and none relate to each other. They are all simple people, dealing with loved ones, living and dying, loving and hating. In one short story, a girl is waiting for her despised father to die and it is bizarrely and darkly humorous. Another storyline is a family of an interracial marriage where the step mother is attracted to the stepson in an unacceptable manner. Each one draws you in deep to those characters, the detail is great and easily imagined. The people are strange and the reader may constantly say (out loud!) what in the world was this author thinking?! And as only avid readers can understand (in a book that is not exactly lovable) the writing is excellent.
    • 4/5
      This was an excellent and enjoyable book filled with interesting characters and ideas, which Bloom depicted clearly but with a light touch. I enjoyed Bloom's well-constructed stories and her engaging writing style. Bloom demonstrated the stylistic artistry I had expected to find (but didn't) in the last book I read, Francine Prose's Primitive People.
    • 1/5
      Did not finish. I hated it and couldn't continue reading it. I've never stopped reading a book in my life until now.
    • 2/5
      "Where the God of Love Hangs Out" is a collection of short stories by Amy BloomThey are loosely related and tell the story of a family as time goes by. I love short stories and was looking forward to reading it. I didn't really like it though. The problem is nothing much really happens. I'm not talking about action adventure type stuff with guns, bad guys, and sex. I'm saying that nothing happens. It's like trying to move through molasses.I kept on reading though because I liked the characters. That ever happen to you where you don't like reading the book but you keep doing it because you like the characters. But I just can't go on any longer. That happens to me all the time. I'm not saying this is a badly written book. I'm just saying that it's not my cup of tea.I love short stories but I'm glad this is a library book.
    • 3/5
      I was looking forward to reading this because Amy Bloom writes beautifully, but Away didn't appeal to me. Unfortunately, she's now 0 for 2 with me. Again, the writing is lovely. And again, the storyline (or lines, in this case) pushed me away when characters took off in directions I just didn't get. Several stories trace the path of an ongoing affair between two married friends, and several others follow the relationship with a woman and her stepson that inexplicably veers into inappropriate territory and never finds its way back. I think I know where she was going with these, but she left me behind.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book, but have resisted writing a review because I'm afraid I can't do it justice. This book of short stories would be a good introduction to Amy Bloom for new readers. Somehow, she is able to write about the feelings you don't expect to have and the quirky observations that we all make, but generally do not share. As I read this book I found myself thinking, 'Yes, that's exactly how I feel!' and 'Yes, that's how I think!.' Amy Bloom is able to make amazing connections with her readers. I will read anything she writes.
    • 3/5
      I so wanted to love, love , love this book, because I truly loved Away and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. But Where the God of Love Hangs Out just doesn't match Bloom's other work. Craft -wise (hate that phrase, but it works here), Bloom works some of her usual magic. Dialogue between characters and observations about their lives are a delight to read. But frankly, after an initial surprise sex scene between mother and adult step son (after the father's funeral) the surprises disappear and the reader will waste lots of energy waiting for such a wild moment to happen again. (It doesn't). And since 2/3 of this collection are related stories (not a novel, but sure reads like a novella minus transitions), if you lose patience with those characters (like I did), there's little else except for the loveliness of Bloom's writing to sustain you.
    • 4/5
      For readers unfamiliar with Amy Bloom, her latest selection of short stories, Where The God of Love Hangs Out, would be a good start into this talented writer's world. Stories in this collection showed the wide range of love - family love, friendship, forbidden affairs and lust. Bloom explores it all, hiding from nothing, exposing her readers to the many types of love that exist in this world. Several of the stories in this book are interwoven, giving readers a peak into certain characters' journeys. This is especially true of Lionel and Julias, whose stories comprised a good portion of the collection. Julia was Lionel's stepmom, and the two shared a love that ranged from motherly to intimate to aloof. Other stories stood alone - short tales that packed a mighty punch - such as the last story (my favorite ) that explored the friendship between a father and his son's wife. No matter which story you read, Bloom's prose will sweep you away. She works magic with every sentence. Her characters are realistic and engaging, and their love for their spouses, lovers, family members or friends represented all types of love. My only word of caution would be to those who don't like to read about sex: some of the scenes are graphic and could be a turn off to some readers. With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the stories in Where The God of Love Hangs Out - and look forward to reading more stories by Amy Bloom.
    • 5/5
      Trying to review an author who writes this well, who paints such lyrical and haunting emotional landscapes - it's like trying to talk with a mouthful of marbles. Amy Bloom is an artist. A poet. She creates startlingly dense and rich vignettes, filled with unforgettably complex characters, conflicted and sometimes inexplicable emotions, each story a window of truth. I found myself equally tongue tied trying to post a review of Away, which I received as my first Librarything Early Reviewer advanced book in 2007. What a gift. I feel like I'm only qualified to write a thank you note and some fan mail, not review any of her writing. Which I love. I would only ask that the stories and books be longer, as I always want just a little more.She teaches creative writing at Yale, and is a psychotherapist. She's as good as I might expect that combination to be, even better, at telling people's stories, at pulling me into her character's lives, at surprising me. She clearly knows a thing or two about love and life, about painting a picture with words. I'll read anything she writes.
    • 4/5
      We readers are truly fortunate to have so many accomplished writers of short fiction from which to choose including Amy Bloom, who continues her winning ways with her new collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. She uses this vehicle to explore relationships between lovers, friends, and families and investigates how disappointment, loss, passion, sadness and joy play into every relationship.There are two separate sets of linked stories and four individual short stories. Every story was very well done but I had two favorites. In the title story, which actually comes at the end of the book, a man and his daughter-in-law commiserate about their lot in life, their cheerless pasts and their empty present. In the, end they are able to forge a friendship that provides both with hope for the future and allows each to appreciate what they already have.The linked stories about Lionel and Julia provide an absolutely heartbreaking look at a multiracial family, built after divorce, as they try to recover from the effects of a great loss. Stepmother Julia and twenty year old stepson Lionel make a grave error in judgment and live the next twenty years trying to recover from it. In the meantime, the family goes on and grows together in their love and appreciation of each other. Bloom’s ability to wring the most out of a sentence is apparent throughout the book. For instance, on page 153 she writes, “It’s Jordan who has the right disposition for yoga, Lionel thinks; the boy’s a limpid pool of goodness in a family of undertow.”I loved this collection of short fiction because of the author’s ability to make you feel for these characters, which is not an easy feat when you’re working with a condensed format. She has a unique and wonderful way with words that paints such a beautiful picture and, at the same time, tears your heart out. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      I finished this book a week ago, and I’ve been trying to find a way to write about it ever since. My first experience with Amy Bloom has left me flummoxed and rendered me inarticulate. The stories in this collection are crafted so beautifully and packed with such emotional power that I am just in awe. But I’m going to try to talk about them because how else will I convince you to READ THIS BOOK NOW!Where the God of Loves Hangs Out is comprised of twelve short stories, but it’s really more like two novellas plus four stand-alone stories. The first four stories of the collection present William and Clare, best friends who are married to other people but embark on a romantic relationship that will define the final chapter of their lives. Bloom alternates between Clare’s narrative voice in the first story “Your Borders, Your Rivers, Your Tiny Villages” and close third-person for the remaining three and paints a remarkably full picture of these two people and their families and the larger narrative of their lives at four distinct moments.This section is followed by two stand-alone stories that I remember enjoying but that I didn’t find nearly as compelling as the William and Clare pieces. Then comes a four-story block about Julia and Lionel, a middle-aged woman and her stepson, who sleep together the day after Lionel’s father’s funeral and spend the rest of their lives trying to make amends for the mistake and repair their relationship. Bloom shows deft narrative skill in writing stories from Julia’s perspective, Lionel’s perspective, and close third-person, and I could not turn away from Julia and Lionel’s struggle to navigate the complex and long-lasting effects of one moment of confusing, desperate sadness.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this collection of stories about love, family and loss. I especially liked the two series of connected stories which followed the characters thriough different stage of their relationships.
    • 5/5
      Where the God of Love Hangs Out is the fantastic new collection of short stories written by Amy Bloom. The stories all center around the theme of love, from the forbidden love between a woman and her stepson to the affair between two middle age friends. Bloom takes the most seemingly mundane characters and makes them so interesting that they remain with the reader long after the stories have ended. There were a few graphic sex scenes that made me uncomfortable to read; however, I believe the discomfort was intended by the author due to the forbidden and illicit nature of the relationships involved. Bloom is nothing short of brilliant. Truly brilliant.[This book was reviewed as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers group]
    • 4/5
      Having read Amy Bloom's previous short story collections, I was thrilled to learn I'd been chosen to receive a copy of her latest, "Where the God of Love Hangs Out," through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. When the book finally arrived, I delved right in and found it to be well worth the wait.This is Bloom's most accessible collection yet; her mastery of language has always been without question, but here she paints such relatable, heartfelt stories and characters that I'd recommend this book even to readers who are not normally drawn to short forms of literary fiction.I love seeing authors play with format and structure, and Bloom does so here by grouping interrelated stories into sections. In doing so, she gives the reader an opportunity to get to know her characters much more intimately than one could expect from a single short story. We're able to view an affair between two married friends from both of their points of view, as well as from the outside looking in--thus viewing the consequences of their decisions from all angles. In another section, we're able to see how a grave mistake in a moment of weakness changes the dynamic of one family entirely, extending to all of its members in dramatically different ways over the course of a few decades. Typically I can set down a short story collection in between stories and not come back to it for days, even weeks or months--but by pairing the stories in such interesting ways here, Bloom kept me eager to read, much as if I were reading a novel.In keeping with her trademark, Bloom's insight into human relationships--and how the things that go unsaid can be infinitely more powerful than the things we do say--is the real driving force of this book. The reader would be hard pressed not to see a bit of him or herself in each of these stories. I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      In her new collection of short stories Where the God of Love Hangs Out, Amy Bloom (Away) finds love at the center of each story, for better or worse. She gets inside the nature of love, whether it is in the anger a daughter feels for her abusive father, in the pain felt by a roommate over the loss of her murdered friend, in the longing of a mother for the love of her stepson, in the tangled relationships of two couples torn by the love of one for another. This is not a long book, and yet every story feels as though it is longer than it is. Bloom packs every sentence with meaning and manages to build scenes and relationships as complex as in a novel but set inside a short story.The collection includes two sets of four interrelated stories. One set features two middle-aged couples in which one person in each couple becomes attracted to each other. They struggle with the guilt and their betrayal and seem ultimately to come to a resolution, but in the end, do they really? In the other set of stories, a grieving widow is seduced by her teenage stepson with consequences that will haunt them the rest of their lives. Bloom rounds out the collection with four other stories, each quite different and even startling. In each of these stand-alone stories, Bloom creates a world we immediately enter and understand, often painful, always realistic, for better or worse.Amy Bloom follows up her critically acclaimed novel, Away, with this fine collection of short stories that deepen a reader’s appreciation for short fiction. Highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      This short story collection was good........but not as good as "Away" or her other novels. The stories seemed too short even though the first ones were linked together with the same characters they seemed to just leave you hanging. I hope she goes back to the novel.
    • 5/5
      It's been a week since I finished Amy Bloom's collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. I am astonished at how haunted I am by the vivid characters that inhabit this superb book. They've been popping into my consciousness again and again as I go about my daily routines. They've even entered my dreams. These are characters who are fascinating and unorthodox—they demand attention and thought. I find myself empathizing and caring about them as if they were real. I want to know more—to find out how they are faring, how they are coping. It's been a long time since I've read an author who demonstrates such an exceptional gift for creating real people with nothing more than astute literary skill. And what is so amazing is that Bloom is able to do this with such an economy of words—it takes my breath away! She does more with the many characters in these short stories than many authors are capable of doing with one character at the end of a long novel. At the heart of this collection are two sets of linked stories; each reads like a novella. In addition, there are four short stories. Each of the six pieces deals with issues of love, intimacy, and the mystique of the human condition, especially our inexhaustible need to establish meaningful human attachments. For a brief time, we are invited to share each character's inner life and most intimate secrets. We inhabit their minds while they make important choices and face travails. Most of the characters have led wholly unconventional lives. At times, we feel uncomfortably like voyeurs. But the author's skill takes us through these awkward moments with dignity…and frequently with a bit of off-color humor. The author goes out of her way to be nonjudgmental in revealing the details of her characters' lives. This makes it easy for us to try and understand and empathize. The author frequently changes voice and point of view so we are exposed to events from differing viewpoints. Her characters often show amazing resilience in the face of adversity—these are everyday heroes at the center of their own oddball and often-miserable lives…heroes because they have somehow found the resilience to deal with their situations as best they are able. This is superlative psychological fiction, not moral fiction.This book is an astonishing collection. If you are already a fan of Amy Bloom, don't miss it. If you've never read her before and love books that are focused on real people in real situations, be prepared for a treat. This is first-rate literature. I recommend it highly. I will not be surprised to see it nominated for any number of major literary awards.
    • 4/5
      I haven't read either of Amy Bloom's two previous collections of short stories but I loved “Away,” her first novel, and jumped at the chance to see what she would do next. As it turns out, three of the four stories in one of the two linked sets in “Where the God of Love Hangs Out” are reprinted from the earlier books. Bloom first wrote about the Sampsons from Julia's perspective, revisited them in stories narrated years later by her step-son and son and looks in once more in the current collection on a family that is ethnically diverse, geographically dispersed and bound less by blood than by the heart of a fiercely loving woman. In the second of the linked sets, Clare and William, middle-aged academics and best friends, unexpectedly find themselves falling into a deeper, more intimate relationship that endures through their divorces, marriage to each other and the inexorable frailties of age. The stand-alone stories, while inevitably less memorable, are equally deft and penetrating.Amy Bloom's training and long experience as a psychotherapist clearly inform her understanding of complex emotions and the human condition but her ability to convey those emotions in just a sentence or two or a few words of dialogue is the mark of an accomplished writer. In her stories, the God of love hangs out in some unlikely places and may make you more than a little uncomfortable but you won't soon forget these people and how their lives are shaped by love.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this short story collection by Amy Bloom. I loved her novel AWAY and was waiting for her next book. Usually I don't read many short stories except in The New Yorker Magazine but recently I enjoyed LOVE STORIES IN THIS TOWN by Amanda Eyre Ward. This book is as interesting and has two unusual relationships chronicled through 4 stories each. Ms Bloom does a great job of expressing complex thoughts, images and ideas in wonderful sentences. I would highly recommend it.