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S'està carregant… Lovepainde Curtis Smith
Cap No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra.  evil_cyclist | Mar 16, 2020 |  Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Fiction. Eli was right. The act of kindness he envisioned as a lesson to his young son Mark would have serious consequences. Just not the ones he imagined. In carefully modulated prose, Curtis Smith takes us on a journey into one family's encounter with love, betrayal, and ultimately the hard-earned reward of self-discovery. When Eli, a social worker, husband, and father encounters the roiling waters beneath his conventional life, he bonds with his remarkable son in ways he never expected. But nothing is easy in LOVEPAIN, and this newfound relationship comes at a high cost. Watching his wife, Kate, descend into drug and alcohol abuse, Eli turns increasingly to Zoe, a client who gives him a sense of order and renewed purpose as he struggles with the destruction of his once-secure assumptions. As Eli's act of generosity exposes the fissure in his own life his wife's indiscretion, his own uneasy relationship with his son, and the possibilities and limits of personal relationships Smith's novel bears witness to our difficult victory over the tangled world of love, hurt, and responsibility. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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I have previously read Smith’s short fictions and his nonfictional personal examination of Slaughterhouse Five. This is the first novel of his I have read. Love Pain is the story of a short period of time in the life of Eli and his son Mark. Smith opens the novel with a wonderful and densely descriptive scene that shows the writer’s ability from the start. Eli is a social worker who truly believes he can help people and he does go out of his way to do it. He does so in a natural way not trying to be a hero. His role to his son is much the same. He is patient and indulging of his son and his interests. Things would be fine for Eli if that was the entirety of his life.
Unfortunately for Eli, and the rest of us, life is not so simple. Eli has a sinkhole near his house, there is a wild animal on the lose, his wife has other goals, his client, Zoe, has difficulty maintaining traction, and then there is the Christmas play. Eli is faced with choices and with a destiny that does not seem to allow him peace and comfort. Lovepain describes the competing forces: The love for his wife and the pain of her actions, the effort into Zoe’s future and the slipping back, being everything he can be to his son and still be a responsible adult and father. It is not only people that disrupt life. Man’s own development leads to problems like sinkholes in the neighborhood. Even nature itself faces threats and blame. An escaped zoo animal suddenly is the center of blame as it tries to fit into developed society.
For a short novel, Smith manages several subplots with well-developed characters and maintains the ability to include detailed settings. The plot flows along at a respectable pace absorbing the branches in the story and twining them together masterfully. Smith’s talent in short and micro fiction helps create a novel without fluff or gratuitous filler. Well written and meaningful prose examining the duality that is life.