What Is This Thing Called Love? - Hardcover

Wilder, Gene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312598904 ISBN 13: 9780312598907

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2010

Synopsis

The actor and novelist answers this eternal question twelve ways, in stories that explore our most complicated emotion

This is a winning collection from an author writing on his favorite topic: love. Each emotionally involving story illuminates a different kind of love: star-crossed, intense, needy, eternal, unrequited, even comical. Wilder’s protagonists will be instantly recognizable to his fans: men and women who stumble into relationships that can fulfill them or knock them out cold. Which one it will be depends, often, on the smallest of gestures or reactions. Wilder’s stories include:

· “In Love for the First Time,” about a lover so shy and studious that he’s a “funny duck” who has to be led by the hand by his equally inexperienced girlfriend

· “About Being in Love,” featuring coarse but charming Buddy Silverman, who yearns for connection but looks for it in exactly the wrong kind of woman

· “The Woman in the Red Hat,” who shows a writer who has only explored love in his books what the real thing feels like.

About this title

Review:

'"It was cold and raining at four in the morning when Buddy walked out of Caesars Palace, stark naked except for the L.A. Times wrapped around his waist." These sweet, hilarious stories about love are dedicated to Gene Wilder's cousin Buddy: "When he was alive he really wanted love, but settled only for sex." Many are about the time wasted by lovers who choose to hide their true feelings -- Jane Austen without the happy endings. "She pretended to be a big flirt and I knew she really wasn't." Some are about unrequited love: "I asked Melanie to marry me when she came to my house for dinner.... Melanie just giggled. I was three and a half years old." Others illuminate the myriad differences between book love or screen love and the real, awkward world of miscommunication and lost opportunities. All together, they serve as a lighthearted reminder of love's potential (requited, even unrequited) to make a life worthwhile.'--"Los Angeles Times"

'It was cold and raining at four in the morning when Buddy walked out of Caesars Palace, stark naked except for the L.A. Times wrapped around his waist." These sweet, hilarious stories about love are dedicated to Gene Wilder's cousin Buddy: "When he was alive he really wanted love, but settled only for sex." Many are about the time wasted by lovers who choose to hide their true feelings -- Jane Austen without the happy endings. "She pretended to be a big flirt and I knew she really wasn't." Some are about unrequited love: "I asked Melanie to marry me when she came to my house for dinner. Melanie just giggled. I was three and a half years old." Others illuminate the myriad differences between book love or screen love and the real, awkward world of miscommunication and lost opportunities. All together, they serve as a lighthearted reminder of love's potential (requited, even unrequited) to make a life worthwhile.' Los Angeles Times"

"'It was cold and raining at four in the morning when Buddy walked out of Caesars Palace, stark naked except for the L.A. Times wrapped around his waist." These sweet, hilarious stories about love are dedicated to Gene Wilder's cousin Buddy: "When he was alive he really wanted love, but settled only for sex." Many are about the time wasted by lovers who choose to hide their true feelings -- Jane Austen without the happy endings. "She pretended to be a big flirt and I knew she really wasn't." Some are about unrequited love: "I asked Melanie to marry me when she came to my house for dinner.... Melanie just giggled. I was three and a half years old." Others illuminate the myriad differences between book love or screen love and the real, awkward world of miscommunication and lost opportunities. All together, they serve as a lighthearted reminder of love's potential (requited, even unrequited) to make a life worthwhile.'" --Los Angeles Times

About the Author:

Gene Wilder has been acting since he was thirteen and writing for the screen since the early 1970s. His first book, about his own life, was Kiss Me Like A Stranger. His first novel, set in France in World War I, is My French Whore. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Karen.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0312598904
• ISBN 13: 9780312598907
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160