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    xxpaulmartin12345x
    Jun 15, 2018
      ·  Edited: Jun 15, 2018

    Alphabet of Love Serial

    in Stories

    Alphabet of Love Serial by Lou Rowan ff. Most letters in this collection of short fiction have their own story. A and B, however, appear together as human algebraic unknowns and X and Y are Cartesian coordinates in a graph of failure and accomplishment. In between we encounter the other letters-characters, their relationships and families, their thoughts and feelings. Some characters reoccur. B comes back as the friend of I’s sister and as the partner of M (I think) , and I, himself, changes from a third person I to a first person I. The human comedy is on display from a cultish religion to tentative attempts to pursue attraction to jealousy to betrayal to utter vulnerability. The story of O depicts what the slide to an alcoholic bottom feels like. Fastidious I disapproves of so much – that one would have a dog (ruining the planet) that Q would offer his kidney to R, who recklessly skips dialysis, or that the adored ballet dancer T would be sloppy with food. Of the many delights that come at you with frequency, my favorite is “I thank God for inventing secular humanism. . .”


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    lourowan
    Jun 15, 2018

    Thanks, Marge. Seattle has more dogs than children, but my partner Andrea has forbidden me to read "QR" here, since dogs, unlike poor secular humans, can do no wrong.

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