My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead

In his excellent introduction to this multicultural collection of love stories, Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides, claims that love stories “can never be about full possession.” They are about unrequited love, adultery, divorce and choosing the wrong person. In other words, they’re about pain. The title comes from a poem by Catullus, who Eugenides suggests was the first person to write extensively about love affairs. The poem tells of a mistress’s pet bird that dies. The narrator is both happy that the bird is dead—as it takes her attention away from him—and disturbed that the mistress is now upset, red-faced and crying.

This clash of wanting one thing and having another—grappling with ambivalent and conflicted feelings—is the bread and butter of the love story and is true of all the works in this anthology. Eugenides has chosen 26 stories, including “Lady with the Little Dog,” Anton Chekhov’s seminal affair story, and “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” by the 21st-century queen of the short story, Alice Munro. In it, Munro details the emotions of a serial philanderer, who has to watch his Alzheimer’s-afflicted wife start a romance with another patient at her nursing home, while she forgets him entirely. There are old and new classics included here (Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and Lorrie Moore’s second-person masterpiece, “How to Be the Other Woman,” to name just two), but Eugenides has included some delightful surprises as well.

The different voices that come through are balanced well, and the stories are surprisingly upsetting and thought-provoking. Perhaps it’s not an ideal Valentine’s Day gift, considering the themes, but this is a welcome and thoughtful addition to the stilted pantheon of anthologies.

Proceeds for the sale of the book go to 826CHI. Eugenides will discuss it on Friday 11.