This Is Not A Love Song
“Brendan Mathews is wonderful on how visceral and messy
our longing for each other can be.
These are funny and wrenching stories.”
—Jim Shepard
“This is vibrant, risk-taking realism;
a slim volume that bursts at its seams.”
—VOGUE
Shortlisted for the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
Longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award
A debut collection of moving and darkly witty stories from an "admirably fearless" (New York Times Book Review) writer whom critics have compared to Michael Chabon, E.L. Doctorow, and Dennis Lehane
When marriages, friendships, and families come undone, how far will we go to keep it all together? That question lies at the heart of Brendan Mathews's buoyant and unforgettable debut story collection. A young mother watches as her desperate husband, convinced a hidden poison lurks inside their walls, tears their home apart. Two journalists bruised by romance and revolution, one a survivor of the Bosnian war, trade tales of lost lovers. A father and his sons haggle over the family business during a high-stakes round of golf. And a lovesick circus clown tries to explain the accidents that bound him to a trapeze artist and a witless lion tamer.