f I Loved You, I Would Tell You This explores life's rich silences in relationships both acknowledged and covert, and in the unspoken, often treacherous dynamics of families in which so much goes unsaid. Robin Black creates worlds within worlds, and her stories touch upon the great themes occupying our lives, including love, death, the passage of time, and especially grief and loss. And, no matter what gender, age or how different their individual fates may seem, Black's characters are all troubled by similar questions.
A mother, retired to the countryside with her elderly husband, plays sensitive host to her daughter and her lover, even while she mourns the embers of her own relationship. A blind teenager sees the fractures in her parents' marriage more clearly than they can themselves. An awkward and precocious schoolgirl has a very peculiar tale to tell about her origins.
These stories are luminous, wise and unerringly humane, and their emotional generosity is all the more moving for Black's restrained and accomplished style. This is an extraordinarily poised debut collection from one of America's brightest new voices that will yield comparisons with Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore.
