This week’s other featured books, “On the Bus,” by Max Abrams, “Doizemaster: Phantasm Creed,” by Tony M. Quintana, “Oceanography,” by Jeremy Griffin and “Inside Ball Lightning,” by Rainie Oet, can be found by scrolling down below this post, or by clicking the author’s name on our Authors page.
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THE BOOK: This Distance We Call Love
PUBLISHED IN: Paperback, August 3, 2021
THE AUTHOR: Carol Dines
THE EDITOR: Luke Hankins
THE PUBLISHER: Orison Books
SUMMARY: The thirteen stories in this collection blend humor and insight to explore the complexities of contemporary relationships in a culture inundated by information and technology. Focusing on various constellations of marriage, lovers, family, and friends, This Distance We Call Love takes its title from the interwoven themes of connection and disconnection in our most intimate relationships: sisters battle issues of duty and obligation when one sister becomes homeless; a mother and daughter take a trip to Mexico, only to be followed by the daughter’s stalker; a family on sabbatical in Rome must contend with their daughter’s rape; parents navigate raising their only child in the age of climate change; a biracial adopted daughter whose mother is dying battles her own internet sex addiction. Told from the voices of sisters, wives, husbands, children, and friends, the stories delve deep into the relationships that impact and inform our lives, creating a cumulative portrait of relationships in America today.
THE BACK STORY: Before I began the book, I wrote down the following theme: explore the tension between the demands of relationships and the demand in ourselves to keep growing. That theme permeates every story in this collection.
WHY THIS TITLE: I have always been a person intrigued by relationships: Why do some relationships last while others end? Why do two distinctly different people from different backgrounds fall in love in the first place? And how do family patterns and culture impact adult children as they forge lives away from their families of origin? I wanted to explore the different kinds of distances we experience in relationships—psychological, emotional, sexual, and geographical. I thought an exploration of distances in our most intimate relationships would be a fascinating idea for unifying a collection of stories.
WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: I have always believed those we love most have the most power to wound us. I wanted to write about the unintentional wounds—the silences meant to protect ourselves or others, or the silence that arrive from a lack of introspection and communication. All my characters are trying to love the best they can, but sometimes they don’t know what they need and want from relationships; other times they don’t know how to communicate their needs, and other times the world around them changes, impacting their relationships.
Writing these stories, I was reminded that the point of relationships is not to necessarily be happy all the time but to grow and understand more about ourselves through the lens of relationships. In each story the primary protagonist goes through some kind of transformation. Sometimes the transformation means separating or leaving a relationship and other times it means going deeper into the relationship. I would hope the stories might provoke readers to reflect on their arcs of transformation in their own relationships.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“A truly memorable read with deftly crafted and thought-provoking stories that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf, “This Distance We Call Love” is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community, college, and university library Contemporary American Literary Fiction collections.” – Midwest Review.
As we emerge from months of isolation because of the pandemic, we’re all taking a new look at relationships, especially within families. The 13 stories in Carol Dines’ luminous new collection are not specifically about the pandemic, but they do explore the loneliness and isolation between husbands and wives, parents and children, and siblings….Dines’ talent is in immediately creating believable characters on the first page of each story, and her stories have arcs—beginning, middle, and end—unlike some short stories that don’t go anywhere. She drops in dialogue exactly when necessary to move the story….” — St. Paul Pioneer Press
“Dines has created something beautiful and relatable. She opens a window into everyday lives and showcases their value through small moments of humor and sadness. The connections and relationships that make the world go around even when they aren’t perfect are well represented in this book.” — Rochester Post Bulletin
“The foibles of human intimacy are writ large in these powerful stories where irony and empathy collide. Carol Dines is a writer for our times, delivering masterful, unsettling, and utterly convincing fiction that reveals what is real and heartfelt with unflinching veracity. This Distance We Call Love addresses the universal need for human connection by considering new pathways for understanding and compassion.” — Patricia Cumbie, author of The Shape of a Hundred Hips and Where People Like Us Live.
“Carol Dines is a merciless, tender excavator of the human heart. Fans of Lorrie Moore and Alice Munro take note, each of these stories is a delicately calibrated wonder of pain, joy, and transformation.” — Adrian Van Young, author of The Man Who Noticed Everything and Shadows in Summerland
“Carol Dines brings a poetic eye and the voice of a seasoned storyteller to This Distance We Call Love. With family at the core, her stories circle around couples, siblings, friends, all wanting to love more, love better, yet fearing they don’t quite measure up. Dines conveys the resilience of people who accept that not every dream comes true, who risk knowing what they cannot change, and yet learn to accept that if they fail—and fail they will—there will be second chances. These tender, beautifully wrought stories take us to the edges where things fall apart, a landscape of fraying marriages, grief, loss, doubt. And then they bring us back to love.” — Miriam Karmel, author of Being Esther and Subtle Variations.
“The novelistic short stories in This Distance We Call Love ring devastatingly true in their portrayals of characters who are learning to reckon with persisting losses, fears, griefs, and needs. I have only rarely encountered short fiction that has this kind of visceral immediacy, so surprising at all turns. The humor in these stories surprises as well: humor naturally arising from the human comedy of love limited by fearfulness yet deepened by courageous fierceness. In one of the early stores in the collection, the narrator asks, “What does one human being owe another in this world?”: that question haunts every page of this wise, beautiful book.” — Kevin McIlvoy, author of One Kind Favor and At the Gate of All Wonder.
AUTHOR PROFILE: Carol Dines was born in Rochester, Minnesota. In addition to her new collection of stories for adults, This Distance We Call Love, (Orison Books, 2021), she has also published two young adult novels, Best Friends Tell the BestLies (Delacorte), The Queen’s Soprano (Harcourt), as well as a collection of short stories for young adults, Talk to Me (Delacorte.). She also has a forthcoming novel, The Take-Over Friend, that will be published by Fitzroy Books in fall 2022. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including Ploughshares, Narrative, Colorado Review, Salamander, Nimrod, Narrative, among others. She is a recipient of the SWCA’s Judy Blume award as well as Minnesota and Wisconsin State Artist Fellowships. She currently resides in Minneapolis.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: I am available to participate in book groups, readings, and festivals.
SAMPLES: Sample stories are available to read on my website: http://www.caroldines.com
LOCAL OUTLETS: Magers and Quinn Independent Bookstore,
WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: Orison Books, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Goodreads.
PRICE: $16.95
REPORT THIS AD CONTACT THE AUTHOR: http://www.caroldines.com
Snowflakes in a Blizzard 