This Is Not a Love Song

December 15, 2018
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.A patchy but impressive collection from a resourceful writer.

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January 1, 2019
Mathews (The World of Tomorrow, 2017) demonstrates in these stories an uncanny ability to inhabit characters with just a few well-crafted sentences. A master impersonator, Mathews employs a variety of voices, capturing the subtle nuances of dialect and pop lingo to explore with psychological acuity the doubt and insecurities that plague these varied individuals. A Lithuanian journalist visiting Chicago on a fellowship experiences the triggering of a traumatic memory while on an apple-picking field trip; the rise and fall of an indie rock darling is documented by her best friend's photographs; a photography student accidentally burns down a church, inspiring a copycat arsonist; a circus clown's jealousy of the lion tamer leads to a horrific scene under the big top; a successful construction contractor recounts the strained golf match with his father and brothers that ousted him from the family business. Mathews excels at portraying the emotional pain felt by those without a clear place in the world and the universality of self-doubt. The versatility of literary techniques shows a writer in the process of sharpening his unique voice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)