I receive an awful lot of books and occasionally one calls to me immediately and I’m unable to stop thinking about it until I give in and read it ahead of all the others waiting for me. So it was with This Is A Love Story by Jessica Soffer. I usually thank whoever has sent me surprise book mail, but I have no idea who sent me This Is A Love Story. If you were that person – thank you!

This Is A Love Story is published by Serpent’s Tail on 6th February and is available for pre-order through the publisher links here. 

This Is A Love Story

Abe and Jane have been together for fifty years: as two among the thousands of starry-eyed young lovers in Central Park, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as an artist and a writer whose careers were taking flight. Now, Jane is seriously unwell, and together she and Abe look back on their marriage – on the parts they cherished, and those they didn’t: Abe’s early betrayal; and the trials of raising their son Max, who, now grown, still believes his mother chose art over parenthood.

A homage to New York, to pleasure, loss and love that endures despite or perhaps because of what life throws at us, This Is a Love Story brings these layered voices together in a chorus as complex, radiant and captivating as the city itself.

My Review of This Is A Love Story

Jane and Abe share memories as Jane is dying.

Oh my goodness. This Is A Love Story is exquisite. I could not have loved it more. 

The story revolves around Jane, Abe, their son Max and Central Park creating an intimacy and depth that is astounding.  

Jessica Soffer’s prose vibrates on the page. It’s luminous, poetic, enthralling. It’s as if this book is an onion, and Abe peels away each layer as he shares memories with Jane and the reader. As he addresses Jane it feels as if he’s speaking directly to the reader too, so that they become woven into this profound, beautiful, mesmerising narrative. It’s a story that is read with a physical ache in your heart.  

I loved the fragmentary presentation of the text on the page because it reflects to perfection the disjointed way memories swell and fade in our minds. There is a chronology as Jane remembers, but it isn’t entirely linear which makes for greater depth in the narrative. The pendulum-swing from the Central Park to Abe and Jane’s perspective and back suffers a lurch when Alice becomes the focal point, mirroring so cleverly the way she is a jolt in the marriage between Jane and Abe. I found myself loathing her instantly when her name appeared at the top of the chapter, and yet I came to appreciate and understand her. Max too has his time as a focus so that the reader becomes intimately acquainted with them all, leading to a highly affecting read.

As well as a presentation of an enduring marriage, This Is A Love Story is also a love letter to Central Park in New York which is depicted with such fondness and reality it made me feel a genuine sense of loss that I didn’t find time to visit when I worked in the city. Central Park acts partly as light relief that ameliorates the intensity of the other characters’ experiences, partly as a Greek chorus giving insight into events and themes, and partly as a reminder of the quotidian life that continues in the world even when Jane, Abe, Max and Alice feel locked in the maelstrom of their own experiences. Jessica Soffer shows that we are all nothing in the grand scheme of life – and yet we are everything.

The themes of art, marriage, motherhood, nationality, home, creativity and, of course, memory are just a few elements of the rich tapestry that it This Is A Love Story. I suspect that with every rereading – and my word does this book deserve to be read time and again – the reader will discover something new about the characters and, importantly, bout themselves.

Written with a beguiling lyricism that bewitches the reader, This Is A Love Story is exactly that – a love story of truth and hurt, enduring companionship and memory. I absolutely adored it. It is not to be missed. Reading it makes the reader glad to be alive and far more appreciative and observant of the world around them. But be warned. This Is A Love Story will bruise your heart irreparably. I thought it was outstanding.

About Jessica Soffer

Jessica Soffer is the author of This Is a Love Story and Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots. She grew up in New York City and earned her MFA at Hunter College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Real Simple, Saveur, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She teaches creative writing to small groups and in the corporate space and lives in Sag Harbor, New York, with her husband and young daughter.

For further information, visit Jessica’s website and find her on Instagram.