The American Lover - Softcover

Rose Tremain's writing is so good, she makes us hear English anew.

How wonderful to have a new book of Rose Tremain's stories. Like her novels, they are brilliant in both their execution and their variation. I know no other fiction writer who is so smart and so wise about so many different places and people. This book contains a thrilling world of stories.--Peter Cameron

In this season of outstanding story collections... this one occupies space in the top drawer... Tremain's adeptness at not only drawing in page-length but also, and more important, reducing theme and plot to a smaller scale while simultaneously creating a compelling narrative tension is to be admired.--Brad Hooper

Throughout, melancholy is offset by Tremain's worldliness, her quick wit and the sheer joy that's to be had from characterization... Wholly enthralling, these stories gleam with human desire and malice and hope.

The breadth of subjects and settings is matched by Tremain's exquisite prose. Readers might just want to take a break between stories, to savor the language and the images.

An anthology by the Orange Prize-winning author of The Road Home features a Russian author whose life ends far from Moscow, a middle-aged woman who finds renewal during a Christmas storm and a modern-day Juliet who must choose between passion and wealth.