Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
For Read Harder Challenge category “A book published posthumously.” These short stories were written in the 1960s, but the language and characters and issues feel so contemporary. Great writing is like that, I suppose. I listened to the audio version, which was very well done.
Finally picked this book back up after reading snippets and stories here and there. I enjoyed how current and modern-feeling this book was, despite being written decades ago. Not my favorite collection of stories but worth picking up nonetheless.
Fantastic commentary, feels as applicable in 2022 as it was in the 60s when these were written. So glad I picked this up - Collins' stories were vibrant, many-layered, and offered such interesting snapshots into the lives of her characters. I highly recommend this collection.
I am just blown away by this collection. It is as if a window opened up in New York in the early 80s and I got to climb up and sit on the sill. These stories are so real. They feel real, they sound real, and they read like real life. Real life is messy and beautiful and brilliant and that is also how I would describe Collins' writing. I loved some of the stories, some were okay, and some just ...were. That's okay, because the ones I loved were worth the price of the collection.
For my own records, here are my faves:
How Does One Say?
the title story
Stepping Back
Broken Spirit
Lifelines
Dead Memories...Dead Dreams (I think this one would have been a powerful novel)
First book of 2019! When I tallied up all my star ratings for the individual stories, I got 3.4 stars, but I'm rounding up. I think this collection as a whole stands stronger than some of the weaker (and shorter) individual stories, though there were a few that I thought were just fabulous:
• Lifelines - written somewhat through letters between a woman and her husband, who is incarcerated or absent the entire story, and the realization that the relationship is dead, and the moving on.
• Treatment for a Story - so much of this was about the scents that surround the two people in this story; it's not exactly pleasant, but it was so vivid.
• Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? - featuring roommates of different races, and their partners who are of different races than they are, and describes the 1960s in such a beautiful way.
There were several more I really liked (Exteriors, Dead Memories ... Dead Dreams, When Love Withers All of Life Cries), but the thing that stands out to me is the lyricism of the prose. It's just gorgeous.
My biggest complaint is that I am greedy and wanted MORE from some of these. Many of them are very short, only a few pages, so they're very much just snapshots rather than stories. Most of the time, I wanted more than a few pages could give. Most of my favorites were longer-form stories, maybe because I had more investment in them?