The Feast of Love: A Novel

Where has Charles Baxter been all my life? A friend whose opinion I respect recommended this book to me, and I simply couldn't put it down. At first, I couldn't see the connections between the various "pieces," and I thought perhaps I was reading a collection of loosely woven together short stories. But no. The Feast of Love is a novel, all right, and a spectacular one. Essentially, the characters are connected by their relationships within a small coffee shop, and we get to know them thru their interactions with each other in small but very poignant vignettes. And we inevitably grow to care deeply about them. Baxter's book explores many facets of love: passion, infatuation, loss, idealism, old age, parent/child love, etc. Much of it is touching and intense, but must is also very, very funny - I mean, laugh out loud hard enough to waken a sleeping spouse kind of funny. This is a masterful piece of fiction; don't miss it.

Charles Baxter, an acclaimed master of the short story, proves himself equally adept as a novelist in The Feast of Love. The writer "Charlie" scrambles out of bed late at night because of a recurrent nightmare and decides to take a walk. A few blocks from his house, he encounters Bradley, an acquaintance and fellow insomniac who is walking his dog (also named Bradley.) There, in the middle of the night in Ann Arbor, Bradley the human dictates the title and characters of the novel Charlie should be writing. What follows then is pure structural brilliance: Charlie, as an invisible interviewer, pursues the "real" people who have touched Bradley's life: ex-wives Kathryn and Diana, young employees Chloé and Oscar, neighbors Harry and Esther - and the people who affect them. Each character tells a part of the story in his or her own voice. Soon, Charlie the interviewer fades into the background, emerging only when details that he has revealed at the beginning appear in the lives of his characters and thus remind the reader that, in true metafiction style, this fiction has a creator. These love stories tell of mistaken love and true love - and the heartbreak that comes with both. Although they begin as separate tales, by the end they converge, bringing the novel together in a heartwarming whole. Baxter's prose is, as always, precisely clear. The distinct voices of the narration are superbly handled, especially in the case of Chloé, who is the most memorable character in the novel. Charles Baxter fans should not pass up this extraordinary novel. If you like the metafiction in Ian McEwan's Atonement or the quirkiness of Anne Tyler's characters, you should appreciate this novel.

There's such a thing as comfort-eating. Food you turn to when feeling sad or lonely. Food that is familiar & yet delicious, & can help get your spirits up each time you turn to it. Well, I believe there is also such a thing as comfort reading. "The feast of love" is one of the best novels that I read last year. After reading it for the first time, I've found myself returning to it again & again, turning to favourite pieces, or simply reading it from cover to cover, on long, rainy, lonely weekends. It's the kind of novel that makes you step out of your everyday-world, forget all that's on your mind, & live through the characters inhabiting the book.I've been a fan of Charles Baxter for ages, he's definitely one of the best american short-story writers, & my personal second favourite, after Lorrie Moore. "The feast of love" came as a surprise, because it's different from other works by Baxter. It's a novel, but it's also a collection of stories, so in this way Charles Baxter doesn't move far from his usual style of writing. One of the surprises is the fact that the author appears as a character in the book. This "trick" could work or could not, & then would be considered just a party-trick & thus, tacky. Here, it works. "Charlie" (aka Charles Baxter) is a blocked writer who suffers from insomnia & wonders the streets of Ann Arbour, Michigan during long nights, looking for ideas but finding none. On one of his nightly walks he meets his neighbour Bradley, who's walking his dog, also named Bradley. "Why not name your new novel Feast of love"? Bradley suggests. I could tell you stories about myself & people around me, & you could talk to some of them yourself. This is the basic idea of the book, & the stories start unfolding, one more enchanting than the next. This book vaguely reminded me of "things we talk about when we talk about love" by Raymond Carver, & also other books by R.Carver. It's one of the best collections of love stories I've ever read, & for me getting such a strong emotional response from a book is reason enough to love it. There's no point in getting into details about the actual love stories. Just read this book, read it when you're in the right frame of mind, enjoy it & pass it on to a friend.

Charles Baxter, author of the book Believers, has a writer's block. He is wandering around his neighborhood late at night, hoping to get ideas for his novel. When he sits on a bench, a young fellow named Bradley has a marvelous idea for a novel. The name of the novel is The Feast of Love.This is a wonderful piece of literature. It vaguely resembles Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, except that this novel is utterly contemporary. The novel is about love. The author explores different kinds of human relationships. There's Bradley: the hopeless romantic; there's Harry Gingsberg: an old philosopher with a troubled son; then there's Chloe and Oscar: the young, wild lovers. Chloe and Oscar touched me; their love was so pure that it made me cry.This novel is breathtakingly beautiful. I love the language; the characters' voices are very expressive. I highly recommend this novel. Now run along and get it!

What do we talk about when we talk about love? This fine novel answers that question in ways that delighted, surprised, and fascinated me. Think about it. We spend hours and hours talking about love--how it enthralls and defeats us--with our friends in cafes or with our lovers in the dark, but what do we REALLY learn about ourselves during such chatter? Baxter, one of our best ever short story writers, casts the most ordinary moments of love as extraordinary in this inventive novel. The narrator (named Charlie) coaxes stories of love--good and bad--from his characters (who present themselves as his actual neighbors and Ann Arbor acquaintances). Instead of melodrama and Shakespearean high tragedy, however, these love stories offer insight into the true affections that tug at our inner selves. I was most affected by the crazy passions of Baxter's teen lovers, Chloe and Oscar, and by the pained poignancy of a father's wrenching love for his mentally-ill son. This novel is deep and subtle. It's also sexy, savvy, sly and very, very funny. I highly recommend it to anyone who has been baffled by the circus tricks of the human heart.