Love and Amy Bloom

Amy Bloom stories are emotional blueprints. "See, this is how people are" she says and after we read her works and recognize their truth we say, "Yes, absolutely you're right." Not surprisingly, given her day job as a psychologist, her subject is most often the human heart. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, Love Invents Us, "Love is Not a Pie"-her titles say it all. But even though her favorite subject may be tender, there is a toughness to Bloom's writing. In fact, when I asked Joe why he loved Bloom he said, "cause she's a woman who writes like a man." He was trying to be funny but there's something to that. The writing is lovely, so lovely even a speed demon reader like me has to slow down, but it's also marbled with something darker-even cruel- which makes for arresting reading.

Bloom's new book, Away, which comes out this fall, is a bit of a departure for her in that it's historical but her fans will more than recognize her themes. Based on a true story of a woman who walked to Russia from the Yukon, Away is a woman's immigration story, yes, but also a completely unsentimental love story-foremost of a mother's love but also of the other wholly unexpected loves that surprise along the way.

"Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened."

I also have a sentimental attachment to Bloom because she reminds me of the happiest time in my life so far, when I first met (or more accurately remet) Joe. In addition to talking about Myla Goldberg's tights and the sex act in a certain Leonard Cohen poem (no one can say I don't know how to make a first impression) at that first meeting I also expressed my wish to move to Connecticut so that Amy Bloom could be my therapist. He later cited that in his journal as one of the things he liked about me. (He showed me, I didn't peek!) In the same entry he also said I was a home run, "which one can only indentify after a lifetime of watching balls thrown and bats swung." High praise that-is any wonder I love him so?

Look for Away this fall.