What Counts as Love (Iowa Short Fiction Award) - Softcover

Marian Crotty (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1609385160 ISBN 13: 9781609385163

Publisher: University of Iowa Press, 2017

Synopsis

In these nine stories, Marian Crotty inhabits the lives of people searching for human connection. Her characters, most often young women, are honest, troubled, and filled with longing. In the title story, a young woman begins a job on a construction site after leaving an abusive marriage. In “Crazy for You,” two girls spy on a neighbor’s sex life, while their own sexuality hovers in the distance. In “A Real Marriage,” a college student marries a boyfriend to help him stay in the United States. In “The Fourth Fattest Girl at Cutting Horse Ranch,” the daily life of a residential treatment center for eating disorders is disrupted by the arrival of a celebrity. The stories are set in Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Persian Gulf, and often touch on themes of addiction, class, sexuality, and gender. What Counts as Love is a poignant, often funny collection that asks us to take it and its characters seriously.

About this title

About the Author

Marian Crotty is an assistant professor at Loyola University Maryland. Her short stories and personal essays have appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals such as the Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and New England Review. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Iowa Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1609385160
• ISBN 13: 9781609385163
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 134