Seven books about the search for intimacy

Genevieve Plunkett's debut collection of stories, Prepare Her, is now available. A recipient of an O. Henry Award, her short fiction can also be found in New England Review, Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Colorado Review, Literary Hub, and The Best Small Fictions 2018. Her novel, In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel, is forthcoming.

At Electric Lit Plunkett claims "that it is the nature of intimacy to be surprising, frightening, and sometimes downright otherworldly..." and tagged "seven books that approach intimacy from this angle, that hunger for human connection in the corners of the unexpected and strange." One title on the list:

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

This entire novel in stories is about intimacy, beginning with Olive’s husband, Henry, whose heart breaks for a young widow, and who longs for people everywhere to be paired, and never alone. It is Olive, however, in her brusque and unruly way, who ties these otherwise unrelated stories together in a sweeping, literary act of intimacy. Her tears over an anorexic girl in “Starving,” help to open a man’s eyes to the dearth of intimacy and compassion in his marriage. And, in “A Different Road,” Olive finds herself feeling tenderness for a most unlikely candidate: a young man who is holding her at gunpoint in a public restroom.

Read about another entry on the list.

Olive Kitteridge is among Emma Duffy-Comparone’s seven darkly humorous titles about relationships, Susie Yang's six titles featuring dark anti-heroines, Sara Collins's six favorite bad women in fiction, Laura Barnett's ten top unconventional love stories, and Sophie Ward's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue