Love Without Asterisks

In this captivating novella, Judy Pomeranz explores the infinite variety of worlds within worlds that make up Manhattan and reveals how love, in its many guises and permutations, is the single most powerful motivating force within entirely disparate souls. A desperate, adulterous love between a cabaret singer and a physician is just as compelling as a grandmother’s devotion to the memory of her late grandson and a bartender’s to the memory of his late wife. One brother’s love for another wreaks just as much havoc as a wealthy, lonely man’s feelings for a young fellow he is afraid to adore. Seen through multiple points of view in interlocking stories, Manhattan and its inhabitants come vividly to life. Love is elusive, but loneliness and loss are tempered by moments of grace. Faith is sometimes impossible to hold onto, but its absence clears the way for reflection and self-examination. Death slams some doors shut, but opens others a crack. Right and wrong become relative, or meaningless. Through the eyes of one small, quirky coterie of New Yorkers, the human condition unfolds before our eyes. This is the first in a trio of novellas by Pomeranz set in Manhattan’s art world. An earlier version of this book, called On the Far Edge of Love: New York Stories, appeared as a serial in élan magazine.