Literary love stories begin where the love stories of popular culture end. They are not so much about falling in love as about what happens next - an ever after not always lived so happily. Collected in The Literary Lover are twenty stories of infatuation and devotion, bliss and heartbreak, fading ardor and intense eroticism, written by some of the greatest contemporary masters of the short story.

Among the lovers to be found in these pages are a beautiful woman drawn to ugly men; a man of seventy writing a letter to his wife of many years; a virgin bride; a revolutionary on the lam; a sadist and a masochist not quite in sync with each other; an abandoned wife living in a small apartment with four young children; a real estate broker whose love for another man destroys his marriage; a girl with a high-school reputation for promiscuity who recaptures her chastity in college; a married couple on a European vacation in the aftermath of a miscarriage; and an estranged couple in Africa pursuing intentionally hurtful extramarital affairs.

The expressions of love range from an innocent declaration to a calculated seduction. Each story treats the subject of romantic love in an original way, with clarity and truthfulness.

Contents:
• Rachel Ingalls: "The Faces of Madness"
• Steven Millhauser: "The Sledding Party"
• Andre Dubus: "Graduation"
• Charles Bukowski: "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town"
• Harold Brodkey: "Innocence"
• Mary Gaitskill: "A Romantic Weekend"
• Joyce Carol Oates: "Morning"
• William Kotzwinkle: "Jewel of the Moon"
• Ward Just: "The Costa Brave, 1959"
• Grace Paley: "An Interest in Life"
• David Leavitt: "Houses"
• Maria Thomas: "Come to Africa and Save Your Marriage"
• Alice Walker: "The Lover"
• Nadine Gordimer: "Safe Houses"
• Laurie Colwin: "Frank and Billy"
• John Updike: "Love Song, for a Moog Synthesizer"
• Edna O'Brien: "The Love Object"
• Norman Rush: "Instruments of Seduction"
• Doris Lessing: "The Habit of Loving"
• Richard Bausch: "Letter to the Lady of the House"

Edited by Larry Dark