The Feast of Love

The Feast of Love
Charles Baxter

A superb novel that delicately unearths the myriad manifestations of extraordinary love between ordinary people. ‘The Feast of Love’ is just that – a sumptuous work of fiction about the thing that most distracts and delights us. Shortlisted for the National Book Award.In this latter-day ‘Midsummer Night's Dream’, men and women speak of and desire their ideal mates; parents seek out their lost children; adult children try to come to terms with their own parents and, in some cases, find new ones.In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first wife seemed to achieve a moment of simple perfection, while she remembers the women's softball game during which she was stricken by the beauty of the shortstop. A young couple spends hours at the coffee shop fuelling the idea of their fierce love. A professor of philosophy, stopping by for a cup of coffee, makes a valiant attempt to explain what he knows to be the inexplicable workings of the human heart. Crafted with subtlety, grace, and power, ‘The Feast of Love’ is a masterful novel.

CHARLES BAXTER

The Feast of Love

DEDICATION (#ulink_e60f5a4a-8f8b-52ae-8bad-c036c7ae1792)

In loving memory of my brother

THOMAS HOOKER BAXTER

(1939–1998)

Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.

—SAMUEL BECKETT, Molloy

CONTENTS

Cover (#u0a100c6c-8db9-5f69-a39f-efd748e55945)

Title Page (#u778178d1-f174-515c-b0c3-4477f03c21b6)

Dedication (#uf1444721-1d4e-5702-a430-618684da7380)

Beginnings (#u60c54ea8-185f-54ec-83ff-61d42d0d7626)

Preludes (#u914cbaa4-046b-5335-9251-e7aba5f89c09)

One (#u7f8e0b39-8ab8-5c1a-b006-666d6b97eb11)

Two (#u1b6da97e-87ca-5602-8c29-2fd77762c615)

Three (#ub0d82baf-178e-5cdd-8663-d3ad5cef6a9b)

Four (#uf13d17e1-4fc8-5792-b256-37e4b9216c90)

Five (#u6c2c8e23-b3f3-51c1-8355-e20bd7e29836)

Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Middles (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Ends (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Postludes (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)