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Passion and Affect: Stories
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780060958954
Within these fourteen hilarious and insightful tales of urban life by Laurie Colwin, critically acclaimed author of Happy All the Time and Home Cooking, you'll meet:
Raiford Phelps, an ornithologist who discovers new patterns of animal behavior when he meets Mary Leibnitz.
Benno Morna, a temporary bachelor, free to indulge in TV, junk food, and Greenie Frenzel when his wholesome wife is out of town.
Vincent Cadworthy and Guido Morris, whose elegant friendship is suddenly disrupted by Misty Berkowitz.
Elizabeth Bayard, whose passion for order and civility does constant battle with her unruly loves.
They are buffeted by the pressures of their jobs, imposed upon by their families and their surroundings, and remain ever hopeful of making sense of their lives. With compassion and biting wit, Laurie Colwin has created a new sort of comedy of manners.
Within these fourteen hilarious and insightful tales of urban life by Laurie Colwin, critically acclaimed author of Happy All the Time and Home Cooking, you'll meet:
Raiford Phelps, an ornithologist who discovers new patterns of animal behavior when he meets Mary Leibnitz.
Benno Morna, a temporary bachelor, free to indulge in TV, junk food, and Greenie Frenzel when his wholesome wife is out of town.
Vincent Cadworthy and Guido Morris, whose elegant friendship is suddenly disrupted by Misty Berkowitz.
Elizabeth Bayard, whose passion for order and civility does constant battle with her unruly loves.
They are buffeted by the pressures of their jobs, imposed upon by their families and their surroundings, and remain ever hopeful of making sense of their lives. With compassion and biting wit, Laurie Colwin has created a new sort of comedy of manners.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 4, 1974
35 people are currently reading
2281 people want to read
About the author
Laurie Colwin
38 books511 followersLaurie Colwin is the author of five novels: Happy All the Time, Family Happiness, Goodbye Without Leaving, Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object, and A Big Storm Knocked It Over; three collections of short stories: Passion and Affect, Another Marvelous Thing, and The Lone Pilgrim; and two collections of essays: Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. She died in 1992.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
October 27, 2022
My maps are all guesswork. Ancient cities, lost cities, places they only have accounts of. It takes me out of the real world. I can't be expected to cope.
Seven is a powerful number, and Laurie Colwin has doubled it here, with a precious collection of 14 short stories, published together in 1974. This one lands on my “a buck and change” shelf, a compilation of stories, under 200 pages, that were originally published in magazines throughout the early 70s. They make their point quickly, and they do not waste your time (though two of them are a little weird).
Ms. Colwin writes the cleanest narratives, with love always at the epicenter of her stories. Not schmaltzy love, but love that works out, and love that doesn't. Not always romantic love, either, but the complicated love between parents and their adult children, and the love of self, or the painful lack of any.
I've developed a professional crush of sorts on Laurie Colwin. I think her style and her interests are most similar to mine. Of all of the “new-to-me” authors I have discovered in my 70s project, I think that she might be the one that has landed the closest to my own heart.
It's funny; I recently noticed that my book ratings from the past year of doing this “70 from the 70s” project have elevated my overall rating to a 4.0, and that might make you think I'm getting softer, but I'm actually getting sharper.
As I crack open the last book of this lengthy project, I see I have a graveyard of books in my closet; thirty other titles that I attempted, but abandoned.
I'm getting savvier about selecting only what serves me, enlivens or enlightens me. In reading (and in my actual life).
This large, recent batch of 4 and 5 stars reads is all about natural selection, and I've been a little giddy about how groovy my recent reads have been.
Seven is a powerful number, and Laurie Colwin has doubled it here, with a precious collection of 14 short stories, published together in 1974. This one lands on my “a buck and change” shelf, a compilation of stories, under 200 pages, that were originally published in magazines throughout the early 70s. They make their point quickly, and they do not waste your time (though two of them are a little weird).
Ms. Colwin writes the cleanest narratives, with love always at the epicenter of her stories. Not schmaltzy love, but love that works out, and love that doesn't. Not always romantic love, either, but the complicated love between parents and their adult children, and the love of self, or the painful lack of any.
I've developed a professional crush of sorts on Laurie Colwin. I think her style and her interests are most similar to mine. Of all of the “new-to-me” authors I have discovered in my 70s project, I think that she might be the one that has landed the closest to my own heart.
It's funny; I recently noticed that my book ratings from the past year of doing this “70 from the 70s” project have elevated my overall rating to a 4.0, and that might make you think I'm getting softer, but I'm actually getting sharper.
As I crack open the last book of this lengthy project, I see I have a graveyard of books in my closet; thirty other titles that I attempted, but abandoned.
I'm getting savvier about selecting only what serves me, enlivens or enlightens me. In reading (and in my actual life).
This large, recent batch of 4 and 5 stars reads is all about natural selection, and I've been a little giddy about how groovy my recent reads have been.
August 16, 2024
“ ‘ In the old days,’ Vincent said, ‘ I’d pop the question and she’d say yes and we’d go do it. Then we’d settle down and live our lives…’
‘ In the old days, there weren’t any Mistys,or Hollys either. I don’t think I know any more how things should be. ‘
‘ Well, I’m just going to go ahead on the theory that things are the way they’re supposed to be, and I think Misty and I should get married.’
‘ I’ll send you the name of a good divorce lawyer for a wedding present,’ Guido said.’ “
This dialogue might have been in the Mike Nichols/Jules Feiffer film “ Carnal Knowledge.” It might have appeared in Feiffer’s cartoons in “ The New Yorker.” Instead, this exchange between cousins Vincent and Guido is part of the eponymous lead story in Laurie Colwin’s collection “ Passion and Affect.” The collection was published in 1974 and portrays a place and time with unerring acuity and meticulous detail. Colwin’s stories depict the enclave of privileged baby boomer Manhattanites who sought self definition and love with a touch of angst during the late sixties and early seventies.
Colwin writes about her characters with deft observation and an economy of words. The dialogue captures the cadence and rhythms of her world and embraces that world with affection and wit. Her characters are quirky yet recognizable as they search for happiness and love. The stories explore the quest for intimacy through attempts to bridge the distance between people and overcome emotional obstacles.
Each of the stories approaches this subject in slightly different fashion. My favorite was “ Passion and Affect.” This story, along with its companion”The Girl with the Harlequin Glasses” is the basis for a later novel “ Happy All The Time.” The previous dialogue between Vincent and Guido contains the signature elements of Colwin’s fiction. Writing in a time before social media, Colwin examined current trends and culture. She centered her work on the consequences of seeking passion and joy. Her characters inhabited a different world than the one we know today. They unabashedly took privilege and entitlement for granted while displaying a generous dose of humanity and subversiveness beneath the era’s traditional domesticity. In the lead story, Misty Berkowitz embodies the limitless possibilities of her upbringing while casting a jaundiced eye upon the predominant male hierarchy. In this way, Colwin anticipates the development of female empowerment and the gradual inroads into male dominance.
The first half of the stories are delivered in a predominantly male narrative voice while the second half intersperses female narratives. Throughout, the women emerge as more astute and observant than their male counterparts. They haltingly navigate a minefield of longing and desires while the world they inhabit gradually begins to shift its focus.
The stories extend beyond a specific milieu to encompass emotions and feelings common to the human condition. The mark of an effective author is the ability to evoke universal connections that diverse people can feel in relation to the characters. By this standard, Colwin’s collection succeeds admirably.
I read this collection at the suggestion of my GR friend Ebba Simone. We read the collection together.My experience was greatly enhanced by Ebba’s observations and participation. Thanks.
‘ In the old days, there weren’t any Mistys,or Hollys either. I don’t think I know any more how things should be. ‘
‘ Well, I’m just going to go ahead on the theory that things are the way they’re supposed to be, and I think Misty and I should get married.’
‘ I’ll send you the name of a good divorce lawyer for a wedding present,’ Guido said.’ “
This dialogue might have been in the Mike Nichols/Jules Feiffer film “ Carnal Knowledge.” It might have appeared in Feiffer’s cartoons in “ The New Yorker.” Instead, this exchange between cousins Vincent and Guido is part of the eponymous lead story in Laurie Colwin’s collection “ Passion and Affect.” The collection was published in 1974 and portrays a place and time with unerring acuity and meticulous detail. Colwin’s stories depict the enclave of privileged baby boomer Manhattanites who sought self definition and love with a touch of angst during the late sixties and early seventies.
Colwin writes about her characters with deft observation and an economy of words. The dialogue captures the cadence and rhythms of her world and embraces that world with affection and wit. Her characters are quirky yet recognizable as they search for happiness and love. The stories explore the quest for intimacy through attempts to bridge the distance between people and overcome emotional obstacles.
Each of the stories approaches this subject in slightly different fashion. My favorite was “ Passion and Affect.” This story, along with its companion”The Girl with the Harlequin Glasses” is the basis for a later novel “ Happy All The Time.” The previous dialogue between Vincent and Guido contains the signature elements of Colwin’s fiction. Writing in a time before social media, Colwin examined current trends and culture. She centered her work on the consequences of seeking passion and joy. Her characters inhabited a different world than the one we know today. They unabashedly took privilege and entitlement for granted while displaying a generous dose of humanity and subversiveness beneath the era’s traditional domesticity. In the lead story, Misty Berkowitz embodies the limitless possibilities of her upbringing while casting a jaundiced eye upon the predominant male hierarchy. In this way, Colwin anticipates the development of female empowerment and the gradual inroads into male dominance.
The first half of the stories are delivered in a predominantly male narrative voice while the second half intersperses female narratives. Throughout, the women emerge as more astute and observant than their male counterparts. They haltingly navigate a minefield of longing and desires while the world they inhabit gradually begins to shift its focus.
The stories extend beyond a specific milieu to encompass emotions and feelings common to the human condition. The mark of an effective author is the ability to evoke universal connections that diverse people can feel in relation to the characters. By this standard, Colwin’s collection succeeds admirably.
I read this collection at the suggestion of my GR friend Ebba Simone. We read the collection together.My experience was greatly enhanced by Ebba’s observations and participation. Thanks.
July 17, 2018
I mostly know of Colwin as a food writer who died in her forties, but she also published fiction and short stories. This subtle 1974 story collection turns on quiet, mostly domestic dramas: people falling in and out of love, stepping out on their spouses and trying to protect their families. I wasn’t too impressed by the first few stories and didn’t particularly engage with the central two about cousins Vincent and Guido (characters from her novel Happy All the Time, which I abandoned a few years back), but the rest more than made up for them.
Several stories reveal the hidden depths of a character who’s only been a bit player in a protagonist’s life: a family friend who suddenly commits suicide, a Hispanic cook who has a rich boyfriend, a widowed piano teacher whose young student’s accomplishments buoy him up, and a supermarket employee whose ordinary life doesn’t live up to the fantasy background her manager, an art history PhD student, dreams up for her. Colwin writes such funny, sharp descriptions, like “he was greeted by a young man wearing his hair in the manner of John Donne, a three-piece suit, and cowboy boots” and “she windowshopped, staring with rapt depression at rows of mannikins in glossy trousers.”
In “The Water Rats” and “Wet,” water symbolizes all that we can’t control and understand, whether that’s our family’s safety or the inner life of a spouse. An unfulfilled wife dreams of making a literal getaway while temporarily escaping into a favorite honky-tonk album in “A Road in Indiana.” My favorite was probably the tongue-in-cheek “The Smartest Woman in America,” in which literature professor Essie Beck competes in a televised lecture competition she is beyond confident that she will win.
Some favorite lines:
“She was three years married and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she did not see that she had become any more serious, any less young and heedless, or any more willing to get down to what Richard called ‘the things of life.’ He was right when he said that she had not made up her mind about anything.”
“She knew that she was storing up memories the way the rich collect paintings. She knew that making memories was the same as making history. But it didn’t matter: she was crying anyway.”
“He looked at his dissertation, or the heap that was to become his dissertation, and sighed again. He was of two minds about this Vermeer business, and he was of two minds about this supermarket business. That accounted for four minds in all, and it made life painful for him.”
Several stories reveal the hidden depths of a character who’s only been a bit player in a protagonist’s life: a family friend who suddenly commits suicide, a Hispanic cook who has a rich boyfriend, a widowed piano teacher whose young student’s accomplishments buoy him up, and a supermarket employee whose ordinary life doesn’t live up to the fantasy background her manager, an art history PhD student, dreams up for her. Colwin writes such funny, sharp descriptions, like “he was greeted by a young man wearing his hair in the manner of John Donne, a three-piece suit, and cowboy boots” and “she windowshopped, staring with rapt depression at rows of mannikins in glossy trousers.”
In “The Water Rats” and “Wet,” water symbolizes all that we can’t control and understand, whether that’s our family’s safety or the inner life of a spouse. An unfulfilled wife dreams of making a literal getaway while temporarily escaping into a favorite honky-tonk album in “A Road in Indiana.” My favorite was probably the tongue-in-cheek “The Smartest Woman in America,” in which literature professor Essie Beck competes in a televised lecture competition she is beyond confident that she will win.
Some favorite lines:
“She was three years married and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she did not see that she had become any more serious, any less young and heedless, or any more willing to get down to what Richard called ‘the things of life.’ He was right when he said that she had not made up her mind about anything.”
“She knew that she was storing up memories the way the rich collect paintings. She knew that making memories was the same as making history. But it didn’t matter: she was crying anyway.”
“He looked at his dissertation, or the heap that was to become his dissertation, and sighed again. He was of two minds about this Vermeer business, and he was of two minds about this supermarket business. That accounted for four minds in all, and it made life painful for him.”
February 1, 2014
Laurie Colwin's stories are ridiculously well crafted. Each is a lesson in how to write. In class, I often talk to my students about the importance of being able to capture a character in a few details, a couple quick brushstrokes. I don't know if I've ever read an author with as deft a hand at capturing character as Colwin. In a few phrases, she suggests characters who are whole and complex and resist easy stereotypes. (For example: "On his arm was a thin girl whose toast-colored hair was so tenuously arranged that Guido was afraid to shake hands with her" (82). Her efficiency is incredible. We get not only the girl in a snap shot but also the way she affects those who meet her, Guido in particular.)
Over and over, I was struck by Colwin's mastery of craft. Her language was spare and poetic, her characters deep with the passion and affect for which her title prepares us.
...so why only three stars? Well, for my tastes (and I believe a Goodreads rating is a reflection of personal taste), Colwin is perhaps a little Jamesian. The world of this collection tends to revolve around the wealthy or recently wealthy or recovering wealthy. It's a novel of manners of sorts--a collection of manners, I suppose I should say. Colwin portrays the distance between the characters into her own distanced portraits of them, and for me, sadly, that made it difficult to empathize/connect with them as I felt I ought. When I put down the book, I didn't long to pick it up again. Colwin is a quiet writer in that not a lot of conflict drives these stories aside from failures to connect, and I suppose that's just not quite enough for me. I admired the book, but I didn't love the book. I see this more as a personal failing than a judgment of Colwin's art. (I tend to have the same issue with Alice Munro, which shows just how large a fistful of salt one should take with my opinion.)
That quibble aside, Colwin's skill is staggering, and I imagine returning to some of these stories to remember what the best writing looks like.
Favorite stories: The Water Rats, The Girl with the Harlequin Glasses, The Man Who Jumped in Water, Mr. Parker, Wet.
Over and over, I was struck by Colwin's mastery of craft. Her language was spare and poetic, her characters deep with the passion and affect for which her title prepares us.
...so why only three stars? Well, for my tastes (and I believe a Goodreads rating is a reflection of personal taste), Colwin is perhaps a little Jamesian. The world of this collection tends to revolve around the wealthy or recently wealthy or recovering wealthy. It's a novel of manners of sorts--a collection of manners, I suppose I should say. Colwin portrays the distance between the characters into her own distanced portraits of them, and for me, sadly, that made it difficult to empathize/connect with them as I felt I ought. When I put down the book, I didn't long to pick it up again. Colwin is a quiet writer in that not a lot of conflict drives these stories aside from failures to connect, and I suppose that's just not quite enough for me. I admired the book, but I didn't love the book. I see this more as a personal failing than a judgment of Colwin's art. (I tend to have the same issue with Alice Munro, which shows just how large a fistful of salt one should take with my opinion.)
That quibble aside, Colwin's skill is staggering, and I imagine returning to some of these stories to remember what the best writing looks like.
Favorite stories: The Water Rats, The Girl with the Harlequin Glasses, The Man Who Jumped in Water, Mr. Parker, Wet.
July 11, 2008
These stories are written simply but so effectively -- she says so much in so few words, and in words that sometimes seem distant and dispassionate but really aren't -- she stands back from her characters to show their traits, and we care about them, flaws and all. There are many moments of humor as well -- she has a dry, blunt style that made me chuckle quite a few times.
November 10, 2021
(3.5 Stars)
I’ve also been reading some of Colwin’s short stories over the past few weeks, dipping in and out of her bittersweet collection Passion and Affect. Colwin writes beautifully about quiet, unshowy people, many of whom are drifting through life, searching for happiness or fulfilment, even if they can’t quite recognise it when they find it. While not necessarily outsiders, many of Colwin’s characters are somewhat odd or idiosyncratic, written with a kind of humanity that makes them seem entirely recognisable despite their inherent strangeness. Here we have stories of people falling in and out of love, not quite connecting through mismatched expectations, failing to compensate for their respective flaws and imperfections.
As one might expect with any collection of short stories, some pieces will resonate more strongly than others, so I’ll focus on a few of my favourites from the fourteen included here.
In The Water Rats (probably my favourite story), we meet Max Waltzer, a thoughtful, successful man who adores his wife and four children so much that his happiness threatens to overwhelm him. For Max, the fear of potential tragedy manifests itself in the form of water rats, recently sighted on the nearby shoreline.
In the beginning of the spring, geese flew in V formation. Max watched them from the bay window. He looked out over the water and saw the first of the small craft battling its way to an old mooring. On the weekends he liked to sit by the bay window and watch his part of the Sound. It soothed him, and it gave him a sense of propriety to see the latticework gazebo, firm on its slope. A family of barn swallows was building a nest in its thatched roof. (p. 49)
This is a beautifully written story in which a man must come to terms with his fear of loss – a worry that poses a more significant threat to his wellbeing than any hypothetical catastrophe.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2021...
I’ve also been reading some of Colwin’s short stories over the past few weeks, dipping in and out of her bittersweet collection Passion and Affect. Colwin writes beautifully about quiet, unshowy people, many of whom are drifting through life, searching for happiness or fulfilment, even if they can’t quite recognise it when they find it. While not necessarily outsiders, many of Colwin’s characters are somewhat odd or idiosyncratic, written with a kind of humanity that makes them seem entirely recognisable despite their inherent strangeness. Here we have stories of people falling in and out of love, not quite connecting through mismatched expectations, failing to compensate for their respective flaws and imperfections.
As one might expect with any collection of short stories, some pieces will resonate more strongly than others, so I’ll focus on a few of my favourites from the fourteen included here.
In The Water Rats (probably my favourite story), we meet Max Waltzer, a thoughtful, successful man who adores his wife and four children so much that his happiness threatens to overwhelm him. For Max, the fear of potential tragedy manifests itself in the form of water rats, recently sighted on the nearby shoreline.
In the beginning of the spring, geese flew in V formation. Max watched them from the bay window. He looked out over the water and saw the first of the small craft battling its way to an old mooring. On the weekends he liked to sit by the bay window and watch his part of the Sound. It soothed him, and it gave him a sense of propriety to see the latticework gazebo, firm on its slope. A family of barn swallows was building a nest in its thatched roof. (p. 49)
This is a beautifully written story in which a man must come to terms with his fear of loss – a worry that poses a more significant threat to his wellbeing than any hypothetical catastrophe.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2021...
February 8, 2022
⭐️⭐️.5
𝙄𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨, 𝙇𝙖𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙡𝙬𝙞𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙜𝙚, 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙮𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨.
💐 I completely respect and appreciate this book and the stories. They were very lyrical and well written… however, I just personally couldn’t connect with any of these stories. While I do appreciate them I just couldn’t connect with them. I’ve said this before - I don’t usually read nor connect with short stories. I could 100% get the reason why this book is so well loved - talented author with a great writing style.
🌼 I don’t think I personally was the intended audience for this book. There was nothing wrong with the way these stories were written nor the way this book was structure… like I said I just couldn’t connect with it. I could still recommend this book because of the lyrical feeling it gave - these stories may be more connecting for other readers so if short stories is your thing then I definitely would recommend this.
💐 I loved the way these stories were created and how these characters were crafted and developed.. even if it wasn’t for me I could still appreciate the book as a whole. Ignoring some cringe scenarios, I could still enjoy how these stories were all touching in their own way. I definitely think I would’ve enjoyed it more if short stories were my favs.
January 4, 2025
I can never sing the praises of Laurie Colwin's writing high enough. Even when I don't love what she is saying, I always love how she says it. Her turn of phrase is so unique, so vivid...I am immediately immersed in the worlds she creates. I have not read this short story collection since I think my early 20's and coming at it now, not every story resonates the same. There was a melancholy and darkness to some of the stories that I didn't recall and did not completely love. But, overall, the stories were immersive and thought provoking.
My favorites in the collection are:
The Water Rats
The Girl With the Harlequin Glasses
Passion and Affect
Mr. Parker (my very favorite)
Imelda
Children, Dogs, and Desperate Men
Wet
I would say that this collection is not the best place to start with Colwin's writing. My recommendation is to either begin with her food memoir, Home Cooking, or else my favorite novel, Happy All the Time. Save this collection for when you have become a true fan.
My favorites in the collection are:
The Water Rats
The Girl With the Harlequin Glasses
Passion and Affect
Mr. Parker (my very favorite)
Imelda
Children, Dogs, and Desperate Men
Wet
I would say that this collection is not the best place to start with Colwin's writing. My recommendation is to either begin with her food memoir, Home Cooking, or else my favorite novel, Happy All the Time. Save this collection for when you have become a true fan.
December 21, 2015
Perhaps close to the bone given daughters on the verge of growing up, but this short story moved me a lot. A fantastic summary of art (music), growing up, innocence and society.
April 7, 2024
This collection of stories started slow for me because they seemed to be variations on the same theme, intelligent women and clueless men in romantic situations. This is not to say that there’s not some truth in this but I don’t need it drummed into me. one of the problems with short-story collections is that while they may be entertaining individually, in a collection you can find authors who only have the single theme, Johnny One-Notes.
After five stories, I began to fear that this would be the case here but the sixth expanded out of the previous as a sort of continuation and suddenly there was an unsure woman and the collection took off from there. Passion comes in all forms and no one has a solid clue as to how to proceed; what we can see in front of us as a clear path can be cluttered with debris, mostly of our own making. This is not a collection of love stories but more like stories of inexplicable obsessions and passions. And of course, these follow no real line of logic and can seem perplexing to anyone who doesn’t experience them.
All-in-all, this was surprising enjoyable, especially after such a dubious start and considering I’m not a big fan of short-story collections. I’d heard good things about Laurie Colwin and it’s interesting to think about what she could have accomplished if she’d lived longer but this is what we have and we must be content that there was at least this much.
After five stories, I began to fear that this would be the case here but the sixth expanded out of the previous as a sort of continuation and suddenly there was an unsure woman and the collection took off from there. Passion comes in all forms and no one has a solid clue as to how to proceed; what we can see in front of us as a clear path can be cluttered with debris, mostly of our own making. This is not a collection of love stories but more like stories of inexplicable obsessions and passions. And of course, these follow no real line of logic and can seem perplexing to anyone who doesn’t experience them.
All-in-all, this was surprising enjoyable, especially after such a dubious start and considering I’m not a big fan of short-story collections. I’d heard good things about Laurie Colwin and it’s interesting to think about what she could have accomplished if she’d lived longer but this is what we have and we must be content that there was at least this much.
December 16, 2022
Devoured this in one sitting, eating a pizza and listening to Swan Lake so I feel like the classiest, most intellectual woman in the world right now. My favourites were The Water Rats, The Man Who Jumped Into The Water, A Road In Indiana, and Wet. It was lovely to see how Happy All The Time started out too. I love Laurie Colwin so much. I especially loved Wet because it’s about a woman who swims, and I try to swim as much as much as I can. It’s nice.
January 4, 2025
This was a mixed bag for me. There were some stories I enjoyed and some I didn't like at all. Through it all, though, I did appreciate Laurie Colwin's skilled writing.
Read
February 9, 2022This is glorious. Paused many, many times in breathless admiration of a sentence or detail. Laurie Colwin is a genius, and I’ve read everything she wrote in the last year. This was the last book I tracked down, and I’m very sad to know there’s no more.
June 29, 2009
Laurie Colwin was one of the best writers ever. This is a collection of short stories & would make the perfect book for your beach bag. Colwin's stories are fabulous if you love New York (or New Yorkers).
Read
January 11, 2017"Bought" this one during an Open Road Media promotion--it was free! So glad to have begun a too-long-delayed acquaintance with Laurie Colwin's work.
January 3, 2015
Beautiful writing.
July 1, 2024
i’ve been so slow about reading all month, but it was a comfort to return to some of colwins works. i will forever maintain that misty, vincent, holly, and guido are colwins warmest and funniest characters and i will always have a soft spot for them.
standouts for me were of course the girl with the harlequin glasses, passion and affect, along with the water rats, a road in indiana, mr parker, wet, and the big plum. colwin was such an acute understanding and ability to put abstract human feelings into words and her writing always leaves me with a profound sense that someone has picked apart at my most private inner thoughts. she writes a lot about relationship troubles but they are often trivial little ones that we don’t pay much attention to in other people, but all feel nonetheless. i felt this particularly in the story “wet” when carl feels betrayed by the discovery that lucy swims every single day and has never mentioned it to him, because it’s a part about his wife completely separate from him and he finds it difficult to reconcile that he can’t share it with her. in this story and others i think colwin does a great job at showing the emotional turmoil and hysteria of some of life’s silly little unknowns.
standouts for me were of course the girl with the harlequin glasses, passion and affect, along with the water rats, a road in indiana, mr parker, wet, and the big plum. colwin was such an acute understanding and ability to put abstract human feelings into words and her writing always leaves me with a profound sense that someone has picked apart at my most private inner thoughts. she writes a lot about relationship troubles but they are often trivial little ones that we don’t pay much attention to in other people, but all feel nonetheless. i felt this particularly in the story “wet” when carl feels betrayed by the discovery that lucy swims every single day and has never mentioned it to him, because it’s a part about his wife completely separate from him and he finds it difficult to reconcile that he can’t share it with her. in this story and others i think colwin does a great job at showing the emotional turmoil and hysteria of some of life’s silly little unknowns.
December 22, 2021
Unlike many of the reviewers here I have not read Laurie Colwin before and after reading "Passion and Affect" I am not sure I ever want to read her stuff again. I found many people in their reviews of this book rated Colwin higher, despite many of them disliking this collection of stories because they were fans but I have no such commitment and in fact, I find that unfair to people who are interested in this book, not the authors overall work. While technically speaking the writing is actually good, the stories are boring and flat. Characters blurred together, plot points were almost the same in each story, despite characters 'struggling' with relationships it all ended up being too similar. I found every character and situation to be completely unreliable. That being said I come from a different generation than most of Colwin's audience which may account for me being unable to relate to white. affluent to rich, most snobby, and highly educated characters. Out of all fourteen of these stories, there is not a single one that I liked and found memorable.
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March 7, 2022laurie’s stories are populated with cerebral people—they know their vermeer and rembrandt, study behavior of birds, publish journal articles about literal garbage… “intellectual sensualists” as one character said. but these are all trivial when it comes to matters of the heart: they “knew as much about the life of the emotions as an infant knows about parachuting.” they’re clumsy people in pursuit of happiness.
it’s also about happiness cut short. feeling/thinking their happiness is always threatened, they anticipate its fall while others just dive head-on (because waiting for the end of light is misery in of itself).
her books are comforting because it reminds me that nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing and it’s okay! there are only people who are good at hiding their confusion and people who think they are good at hiding their confusion. the rare ones never hide it at all.
it’s also about happiness cut short. feeling/thinking their happiness is always threatened, they anticipate its fall while others just dive head-on (because waiting for the end of light is misery in of itself).
her books are comforting because it reminds me that nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing and it’s okay! there are only people who are good at hiding their confusion and people who think they are good at hiding their confusion. the rare ones never hide it at all.
April 15, 2021
A lovely collection of short stories; each is like a little jewel. The characters in these fourteen stories wander through life, confusedly looking for love or certainty. They tend to the mildly eccentric and introverted, with plenty of odd details, unusual jobs, and strange situations. Everyone is searching for something, and they each encounter the strangeness of other people as well as truly odd happenings and settings. There's an air of melancholy around the stories, but it's a lovely kind of bittersweet. I also enjoyed the scenes of New York around 1970, which already seems like a different world. I treasured these stories and can definitely recommend them for gentle reflections on life's weirdness.
April 4, 2022
I am not a huge fan of short story collections. You just start to get interested and the story ends.These stories are (mostly) about men becoming obsessed with some woman they briefly meet, told (mostly) from the man's perspective. Not sure which, if any of these, will stick with me. The ornithologist? the grocery store manager? the man married to a wife who swims every day? the married man with 5-6 children who is attracted to a much younger friend of his cousins who is recovering from a broken heart and has very secure barriers? An interesting collection.....
March 31, 2018
Colwin is a master at the short story form but I found it tedious getting through this collection. There were a handful of outstanding stories but nothing that will stick with me forever.
But IIRC, her novels blew me away.
But IIRC, her novels blew me away.
June 6, 2022
I adore everything Laurie Colwin has ever written and this is no exception. She was SUCH a good writer- clear and moving and wise in every tiny turn od phrase- but I don’t always love short stories, and this collection seems a little more dated than some of her other work. (the stories were written 1969-1974) But still, it’s fantastic just because it’s her.
June 20, 2023
Erudite, urbane, compelling stories of human relationships. The first story in this collection, Animal Behavior, is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read. None that follow are quite as good but all are enjoyable. Like Carson McCullers crossed with Whit Stillman.
March 31, 2021
The good die too young.
December 31, 2021
no one writes about romance like Laurie Colwin
January 31, 2022
This was her first book, a short story collection. This is my third Colwin book in the last year. More well-drawn women characters, more 1960s/70s educated affairs and heartbreak in Manhattan.
March 25, 2022
Colwin has such a great style -- this is one of my favorites.
June 2, 2022
Un recueil de nouvelles sur la vie de diverses familles New-yorkaises qui laisse un peu sur sa faim
March 9, 2023
Colwin shows that the secret to making straight couples interesting is admitting that they’re really very silly
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