Boswell

1986 · 15163 — Iowa City: University of Iowa Press 1986. First edition. Hardcover. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. This copy is briefly inscribed on the title page. Author's first book. Six stories encompassing a vast gamut of personalities situations and emotions these stories penetrate our motives for doing what is right. Often there is no right or wrong and the characters' motives for the choices they make are as diverse as the childhood memories they cherish and abhor. In the end this book probes individual impulse and responsibility creating stories so unerringly authentic that they become—irrepressibly—part of everyone who reads them. "The Darkness of Love" narrates three days in the life of a black policeman distressed by his inner fears of racism and irresistibly attracted by his wife's sister. In "Dancing in the Movies" a college student returns to his hometown where he finds his girlfriend—a heroin addict—and tries to convince her to overcome her habit. There are stories of men at war of lovers trying to begin a relationship of others trying to sustain their love. Each story revolves around characters with a choice to make and Robert Boswell renders these characters in all of their fine vulnerable and relentless attributes. University of Iowa Press hardcover