My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro: Amazon.co.uk: Jeffrey Eugenides: Books

Review

‘[A] brilliant collection of love stories…An absolute must–read.’ Harper’s Bazaar, Editor’s picks of the month

‘Better than a bunch of flowers, if not so sweet.’ Metro

‘Eugenides has written a marvellous little essay on the love story to introduce his choices… an outstanding collection’ Joanna Trollope, The Times

‘[Eugenides’s] artful arrangement of the stories adds to their pleasure. The collection is full of intriguing echoes that complement…one’s responses’ Sunday Telegraph

‘There are plenty of stories here which any lover of good writing – if not perhaps every lover – will enjoy.’ The Scotsman

‘Probably the most scintillating company anyone could hope to take to bed with them on February 14’ Image

‘Better than a bunch of flowers, if not so sweet.’ The Metro ‘Fiction of the Week’

‘A wonderful anthology of short stories.’ Red

‘“Classy” and “love-themed” are not phrases often found together, but this collection of stories, edited by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is just that.’ LondonPaper

‘The mix chosen by Eugenides is wonderful…The plots are wildly different; the range in tone, form and style is immense. This brings unexpected delights… And it is a bigger thrill to realize that however painful the heartbreak, love offers real rewards – and these stories are among them.’ LA Times

‘A must-read for lovers of great writing – and of love.’ Yorkshire Post

‘Love, they say, makes the world go round. So it makes sense that each of the marvellous love stories in “My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead” succeeds in creating a world of its own - and then sets it spinning on its axis… this collection makes us remember how powerful and essential the best short stories are, and how – very much like love – they can make us feel as if some mischievous god has shot an arrow that has ever so sweetly and painfully pierced its target: the human heart.’ Francine Prose, O Magazine

‘Eugenides offers a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for lovers of literary fiction. His witty introduction, which channels Roman love poet Catullus and woolgathers engagingly about the “perishable nature of love”, is only the first among numerous pleasures that await the reader of this generously proportioned – only a cad would call it “fat” – gathering of 26 stories, written within the past 120 years.… One of the best anthologies of recent years, as well as commanding proof that its editor is as expert a reader and critic as he is a novelist.’ Kirkus

Praise for ‘Middlesex’:

‘Expansive and radiantly generous…a colossal act of curiosity, of imagination and of love.’ New York Times

‘This year’s most sumptuously enjoyable book…superb.’ Sunday Times, Books of the Year

‘The best American novel since “The Corrections”…exuberant, ambitious, deeply compassionate and wildly funny.’ GQ

‘This is a truly original and compelling novel, by turns sad, funny and moving.’ Daily Mail

Praise for ‘The Virgin Suicides’:

‘Beautiful funny and touching…Eugenides is a skilful craftsman and a hypnotic storyteller.’ Jay McInerney

‘One of the finest novels in many years – a “Catcher in the Rye” for our time.’ Observer

‘“The Virgin Suicides” is wonderfully original. It could prove to be the start of an important writing career.’ Independent

Joanna Trollope, The Times

'Eugenides has written a marvellous little essay on the love story to introduce his choices...an outstanding collection.'

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

A gem of a book 23 Jan 2009

By Tartan girl

Format:Paperback

I was blown away by the stories in this book, not only because the quality of the writing was so high but because of the variety of story offered. There are stories you will probably have come across before like Chekhov's 'The Lady with the Little Dog' but there are also more unusual ones by great writers like Nabokov's 'Spring in Fialta'. There are traditional, modern and post-modern stories, short and long stories, some of them very moving, and they reveal so many different kinds of love. In his introduction Jeffrey Eugenides makes an interesting distinction between love as a subject and the love story. He offers this fat book of stories, he says, as a "cure for lovesickness and an antidote to adultery." He suggests reading them "in the safety of your single bed" and letting "everybody else suffer". Me, I suffered with the people in the stories. All great stuff!

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

A fantastically unorthodox collection of love stories 2 Mar 2009

By Gabrielle O TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Quirky and wonderfully varied, these 'love stories' are about every possible aspect of love, not just love in a romantic, soppy sense - although there is that too. A range of stories from all range of eras, from very different writers. All beautifully chosen. The stories are carefully arranged, with some themes echoing throughout the book.

'A love story can never be about full possession,' says Eugenides. 'The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims - these are lucky eventualities but they aren't love stories.' That should give you an idea of how he's gone about compiling this fantastic collection.

This is very much NOT a 'happily ever after' book - beware if you plan to make a romantic gift of this! (Although personally I would be delighted to be given this, it isn't strictly romantic, I suspect.) Instead, it's a reflection on love and the human condition in all its varied, sometimes odd glory. Manages to fit in everything from adultery and loss to silly, giggly young love and lasting marriage - and other things in between.

From the classic to the contemporary, My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead is full of wonderful stories - Raymond Carver, Chekhov, Eileen Change and many more. Not exactly love stories, but stories that will make you laugh, cry, wonder and think about love...

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

Lovely 22 Jan 2010

By Stella Leung

I have to admit that I'm a bit biased: I would probably buy a grocery list if Jeffrey Eugenides wrote it. That being said, I've had my eye on this book for ages and I absolute love it. This collection is superb--the stories are funny, poignant, and oftentimes quite punishing, but always worth the effort. In his excellent introduction, Eugenides explains that for him, love stories by default "give love a bad name". So, if you're looking for Nicholas Sparks-type love stories you won't find them here. Instead, there's a brooding and psychological pseudo-thriller by Milan Kundera, a well-known Southern Gothic, an Orwellian contribution by George Saunders, and countless others that traverse the impossibly broad topic of love. Many are coming-of-age tales, while others are steeped in memory and loss. Still others explore seemingly forbidden territory, adopting the point of view of the other woman or the scorned lover. Classic and contemporary, American and transatlantic, hetero and homosexual: this book is simply brilliant.