If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This
Book | Robin Black
A thoughtful short story debut.
The debut from author Robin Black, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This collects eleven stories narrated in the plain-spoken language of middle-class America. Loss permeates the collection: a woman rails against her inconsiderate neighbor while she fights cancer; a man ponders his replacement by his blind daughter's guide dog; a grieving woman looks for connections between her mentally disturbed father's death and her child's electrocution in bath water. Though the protagonists vary greatly, each is subject to the harsh realization that life can be perversely unkind. Psychologically acute, the stories also delve not only into the characters' emotional states, but into their understanding of how the other people in their lives will interpret or respond to their emotions. The inner monologues of Black's characters seem at times to be more like dialogues with the world around them, in which they reject the idea that their unhappiness is normal while asserting the individuality of their lives and losses. This self-preservation creates a welcome counterbalance to the otherwise depressed monotone of the book.
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