Other People's Love Affairs: Stories, by D. Wystan Owen

These linked short stories by debut author Owen are lovely, touching, and sad. Each story focuses on a different denizen of the English seaside village Glass, and each of these men and women have a sort of emptiness to them, whether from love unfulfilled or unrequited, or from a love that lasted until the death of one. We are privy to their indiscretions, some real and some fantasized. We meet a young man who spends his summer going to the movies with an older, married woman; the daughter of a widower seeking a tenuous friendship with a vagrant; a young boy and his aunt, his unwilling caretaker who daydreams about her earlier life of illicit assignations. These are delicate slices of life, carefully pieced apart and displayed like an orange unpeeled and broken into its separate sections. Owen gives voice to the longing we all have for companionship, and gently highlights the quiet indignities and insecurities we endure when looking for it.

If you're in the Napa area, D. Wystan Owen will be appearing at Napa Bookmine for a reading and signing!