Come to Me

This stunning collection of stories – two of them honored by inclusion in Best American Short Stories in consecutive years – takes us into the inner worlds of families, the hidden corners of marriages and affairs and friendships, and introduces us to people whose lives are shaken and changed by love: a grieving mother in need of comfort; a frightened father in need of redemption; wives who become mistresses and regret it, or don’t; a psychiatrist crashing through professional boundaries to provide for her husband and son; a model wife and mother who inexplicably descends to the basement to commune with the seventeenth-century poet Anne Finch; a young woman yielding to her dying husband’s wish to hear about the affairs she’s been having during his illness; a little girl who shyly models Furs by Klein, with Klein looking on in love and sorrow; Rose of the crystal-clear voice and psychotic episodes.

Amy Bloom holds her characters close to us as they encounter the everyday mysteries of need and desire, showing us tenderness and humor in the midst of grief and sorrow, laying bare their loyalties and loves, their fear and their courage, their folly and their faith. She writes the kind of fiction that stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page, the kind that keeps you company and watches you on your way, that celebrates the flawed dignity of the human and reminds us all of the fine venture of living in grace and hope in the worlds we are born to and make.