THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG

A collection of stylistically varied stories that highlight more
lows than highs in the tricky business of emotional investment.

A field trip for two middle-aged Eastern European journalists on
a fellowship in Chicago gets bumpy when the woman’s interest in the man seems
foiled by the presence of their perky young guide. Mathews (The World of
Tomorrow, 2017) complicates a familiar plot as the elders reveal first
loves that went badly awry amid political turmoil. The love within a close
friendship waxes and wanes as a young photographer chronicles her schoolmate’s
rise to rock-music fame and flameout. A couple whose home and baby are both
relatively new feels additional strains when the father develops an obsession
with mold in the house. This book certainly is not a love song of the homely,
sentimental sort. It’s realistic without cynicism, more of an extended aria for
a range of intimacies and attachments that never run smoothly. There’s some
respite in humor. A circus clown realizes he has little chance with the new
aerialist as she dallies with the strongman and the laughably inept lion tamer.
Jokes hold together a father and two of three sons on the golf course, helping
the third see why his family ties have frayed. At a critical moment, a woman
chooses her life-size cardboard man over her flesh-and-blood beau. Mathews is a
restless stylist, and some experiments here are less successful than others,
but such efforts suggest he isn’t satisfied even with his more accomplished
conventional stories, and his talent suggests he shouldn’t be.