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A review by sarawolfe
Passion and Affect: Stories by Laurie Colwin
3.0
i’ve been so slow about reading all month, but it was a comfort to return to some of colwins works. i will forever maintain that misty, vincent, holly, and guido are colwins warmest and funniest characters and i will always have a soft spot for them.
standouts for me were of course the girl with the harlequin glasses, passion and affect, along with the water rats, a road in indiana, mr parker, wet, and the big plum. colwin was such an acute understanding and ability to put abstract human feelings into words and her writing always leaves me with a profound sense that someone has picked apart at my most private inner thoughts. she writes a lot about relationship troubles but they are often trivial little ones that we don’t pay much attention to in other people, but all feel nonetheless. i felt this particularly in the story “wet” when carl feels betrayed by the discovery that lucy swims every single day and has never mentioned it to him, because it’s a part about his wife completely separate from him and he finds it difficult to reconcile that he can’t share it with her. in this story and others i think colwin does a great job at showing the emotional turmoil and hysteria of some of life’s silly little unknowns.
standouts for me were of course the girl with the harlequin glasses, passion and affect, along with the water rats, a road in indiana, mr parker, wet, and the big plum. colwin was such an acute understanding and ability to put abstract human feelings into words and her writing always leaves me with a profound sense that someone has picked apart at my most private inner thoughts. she writes a lot about relationship troubles but they are often trivial little ones that we don’t pay much attention to in other people, but all feel nonetheless. i felt this particularly in the story “wet” when carl feels betrayed by the discovery that lucy swims every single day and has never mentioned it to him, because it’s a part about his wife completely separate from him and he finds it difficult to reconcile that he can’t share it with her. in this story and others i think colwin does a great job at showing the emotional turmoil and hysteria of some of life’s silly little unknowns.