In this captivating novella, Judy Pomeranz explores the infinite variety of worlds within worlds that make up Manhattan and reveals how love, in its many guises and permutations, is the single most powerful motivating force within entirely disparate souls.  A desperate, adulterous love between a cabaret singer and a physician is just as compelling as a grandmother’s devotion to the memory of her late grandson and a bartender’s to the memory of his late wife.  One brother’s love for another wreaks just as much havoc as a wealthy, lonely man’s feelings for a young fellow he is afraid to adore.     Seen through multiple points of view in interlocking stories, Manhattan and its inhabitants come vividly to life.  Love is elusive, but loneliness and loss are tempered by moments of grace.  Faith is sometimes impossible to hold onto, but its absence clears the way for reflection and self-examination.  Death slams some doors shut, but opens others a crack.  Right and wrong become relative, or meaningless.  Through the eyes of one small, quirky coterie of New Yorkers, the human condition unfolds before our eyes. This is the first in a trio of novellas by Pomeranz set in Manhattan’s art world.  An earlier version of this book, called On the Far Edge of Love: New York Stories, appeared as a serial in élan magazine.

Love Without Asterisks

Literature & Fiction

Pomeranz, Judy

Literary

Miniver Press

Whether between parent and child, husband and wife, friends, siblings, or paramours, love is by far the most compelling and fulfilling, but also the most complex and challenging of the roads we negotiate in the long journey through life. The novellas and stories contained within Love on a Small Island are all built upon and revolve around these relationships. In them, Judy Pomeranz presents us with all manner of individuals involved in all manner of relationships doing the best they can to get through the day, and with luck perhaps even figure out how to find happiness and thrive. Tied together only by the common setting of Manhattan and the urban experience that implies, her disparate characters are variously confident, insecure, tough, fragile, bold, timid, tormented, serene, guarded, or open, and occasionally all the above. Like the rest of us, they put one foot in front of the other and hope to reach a place that feels good and right. Also like the rest of us, they rarely quite get there, and when they do it rarely lasts. And yet they persist. Because that’s what people do, and that’s what life is about. These are people we may or may not admire, and may or may not even like, but they are all people whom we relate to and ultimately find ourselves caring for and about.
 Advance praise for "Love on a Small Island:
 Judy Pomeranz’s sublime New York stories rappel down the shiny pages of previous riffs on the art world, the Hamptons, and so much more. Part Amor Towles, part Hortense Calisher, these are sleekly crafted fictions possessing a droll eye, cheeky dialogue, and a whole lotta heart. The two retro novellas alone will make you a Pomeranz fan. 
 Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine
 Judy has written reviews of museums and galleries for èlan Magazine for nearly twenty years. She also allowed the magazine to publish her two novellas, Lies Beneath the Surface and Elegy, in serial format. The consummate writer, her expertise, engaging style, and unique point of view shine through in these stories, as in everything she writes. 
 David Reynolds, Publisher, élan Magazine

Love on a Small Island: More Tales of New York

Genre Fiction

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Books by Pomeranz, Judy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pomeranz, Judy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Love Without Asterisks

Love on a Small Island: More Tales of New York