J Wilder-Hall

What Could We Have Possibly Known About Love Then? J Wilder-Hall

Navigating the precarious waters between heartbreak and loss, and written as the B-side to The History of the World, the short story collection What Could We Have Possibly Known About Love Then? picks up, in many respects, where THOTW leaves off-without any of the unnecessary delusions, but with a hopeful and resolute heart which pushes determinedly forward from the opening story "From Where We Live to Where We're Going" (which finds a thirty-year-old woman stranded on the highway in the driving wind and rain when her car's alternator fails: "Calling and calling practically everyone I knew. Where the hell was everyone?") toward its inevitable conclusion, "Epilogue: Equidistant to Center."Showcasing the lives of hardscrabble Americans, extraordinary human beings caught suddenly in the middle of a life, these eleven wildly spiritual, heartbreaking, and at times raucously fun short stories (about fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands, wives, neighbors, nurses, cops, robbers, mechanics, ex-lovers, and best friends, etc.) remind us time and time again of our very best selves and everything we have in our capacity to offer.