Love, in Theory by E.J. Levy

Nothing warms a cynic's heart like a collection of love stories which are well about love. The stories are sad and depressing and so on , but there are witty and true phrases.

E.J. Levy's collection is meant to "take readers through the surprisingly erotic terrain of the intellect, offering a smart and modern take on the age-old theme of love - whether between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or a mother and a child - drawing readers into tales of passion, adultery and heartbreak"

 The stories start with despair and end with despair but despair is funny. The love stories are delightfully absurd in which often a lot of people do not want to acknowledge love often is.

In "The Best Way not to Freeze" a mid-thirties lecturer who ".. liked the ironic juxtaposition - a flyer on hypothermia tacked to her freezer door. As a scholar , it was her jobs to see things in relationship to other things; the only thing she could not see in a relationship was herself"  tries a 'thing' with a man from an outdoors store.

In "Theory of Enlightenment "  Renee loses Gil to God.. "There is nothing in women's magazines about How to Steal your Boyfriend back from God". 
"My Life in Theory", a usually lesbian woman has a fling with a man but then "Our sex was a little like getting drunk, liberating at first but tedious if done too often. I was embarrassed by the boredom I felt".. .

In Rat Choice.. Lisa deals with her father who has a mistress, and her boyfriend who has left her for an ordinary looking woman. In Small Bright Thing.. June meets her mothers's boyfriend.  In Theory of Transportation - the love between friends is explored as one succumbs to a fatal illness.  The "Three Christs of Moose Lake, Minnesota" is my favourite..  an orderly who helps to keep three persons who think they are Christ from seeing each other falls in love with a nurse who then invites him to her wedding. Poking fun here at sanity " She wondered if we were really curing these guys or simply robbing them of the illusions that sustain a life, if we were restoring sanity or just a more acceptable craziness ".. "What's so wrong with believing you are the son of God?"

Gravity again about infidelity as Richard cheats on his husband at his sister's second wedding. Richard and Brian.. were friends who "drifted into their love affair like flotsam washed up on a beach after a particularly nasty storm" . Gentle poking of fun at stability and later on in "Theory of Dramatic Action" "You will learn that Greek root of 'home' is the same as 'cemetery'

The stories are different in how they are written and who speaks. The themes of infidelity runs through, though it seems as infidelity is seen as liberating .. (two persons leave for God'. Interestingly, the lesbian characters go with men.. the gay man character does not cheat with a woman. 

The collection is a good for those in love and those who never been in love and those who have been in love and those who want to be in love . .. "Hell  is not despair.. it is unending hope"