Interpretations of Love

A Novel

By: Jane Campbell

Narrated by: Julie Teal, Kim Durham, Mark Elstob

A profound debut novel that explores complicated love, secrets, and familial misunderstandings from the celebrated octogenarian author of the “trail-blazing” (Oprah Daily) collection Cat Brushing

During the week of Dr. Agnes Stacey’s daughter’s wedding, each of the 11 attendees in the small family gathering brings their own simmering tensions. Agnes’s uncle, Professor Malcolm Miller, has harbored a family secret since Agnes’s parents died in a car crash when she was a young girl. Dr. Joseph Bradshaw, who married into the family, has nursed a private obsession with Agnes since his brief stint as her therapist. Agnes herself is returning to her ex-husband’s home for the first time, just as she’s trying to extricate herself from a potent new love affair. Each one of these three has the tools to analyze the love lives of others, yet find themselves challenged to recognize the love in their own lives. As they all emerge from painful years in emotional isolation, Malcolm considers where better to lay bare the failures and secrets of one’s advancing age than at an intimate celebration of love?

In this incisive and lively novel, Campbell parses the inner lives of ordinary people doing their best to process aftershocks of war, the parenting they do and don’t receive, and the many different forms love can take in one family.

©2024 Jane Campbell. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2024 Audible, Inc.

Nothing much happens

The performance is excellent, but as the story really has very little to it, much of what we listen to is the rumination of multiple characters about their childhood, their identity, life, death, and one unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate, as we’re forced to consider many times!) decision made by one of them in 1946. I felt impatient by the end.

Gifted writer. Engaging story. Relatable characters.

Wow. I read all the time. There are a couple of authors whose books draw me back after a decade away. There are only 2-3 books that I've reread immediately. I listened to this on audible and when it finished I immediately started over. The readers are Oscar worthy and the writing and dialogues are fun, and intelligent. Listen on Audible and enjoy.