{"id":120426,"date":"2025-03-08T17:26:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T17:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/this-is-a-love-story-by-jessica-soffer-dont-go\/"},"modified":"2025-03-08T17:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T17:26:05","slug":"this-is-a-love-story-by-jessica-soffer-dont-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426","title":{"rendered":"This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: \u2018Don\u2019t go\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-33720\" src=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/This-Is-a-Love-Story-187x300.webp\" alt=\"This Is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer\" width=\"187\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/This-Is-a-Love-Story-187x300.webp 187w, https:\/\/t9z6e6y4.delivery.rocketcdn.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/This-Is-a-Love-Story.webp 312w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 187px) 100vw, 187px\"\/>Jessica Soffer\u2019s <em>This Is a Love Story <\/em>is an exploration of a long marriage between an artist and a writer, played out against a New York City background. Knowing that she\u2019s dying, Jane tells Abe she wants to remember their many decades together, the good times and the bad, many spent in their brownstone apartment overlooking Central Park.<\/p>\n<p><em>You remember a moment when you realized we\u2019d become what we\u2019d always hoped. And at the same time, saying, I couldn\u2019t have done it without you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>I remember walking so many, many, many streets with you. Eating so many meals, sharing a tres leches, two spoons. And drinking tea. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Jane and Abe met in 1967 in their early twenties, she intent on a career as an artist, he eventually succumbing to the pull of his father\u2019s business, setting his writing aside. She had been insistent that they should both put their art above all else, refusing to live with him until he picked up his writing again. Jane excelled in every media she worked, from sculpture, to painting, to textile dyeing, while Abe became a prize-winning author, internationally feted. Her ambivalence about becoming a mother resolved itself after a miscarriage but when Max is born, she\u2019s overwhelmed by an episode of postnatal depression which only re-immersion in her art eases. Max grows into a man, distant from his mother, wary of emotional involvement, hugely successful in his career as an art dealer. Now, in their final days together, no chance of another remission from the cancer first diagnosed when Max was only five, Jane devotes what little energy she has left to recounting her memories of their past to Abe.<\/p>\n<p><em>You remember when the blaming started. You remember it wasn\u2019t just Max. You remember the feeling \u2013 like we\u2019d gone flat, distant, murky, like water left in a glass for too many nights in a row. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d been expecting a straightforward continuous narrative but Soffer\u2019s novel is made up of a string of episodic vignettes, short paragraphs of Jane\u2019s memories, narrated for us by Abe. It\u2019s a style that takes some getting used to. The section narrated by Alice, Abe\u2019s student with whom he had a brief connection which scars his marriage, jarred with me in a way Max\u2019s section didn\u2019t, casting light on his relationship with his parents. That said, the structure and style lend an intimacy to Soffer\u2019s book together with an urgency as Jane becomes more diminished. Her writing is quite beautiful at times, conveying the depth of this relationship between two people, both flawed, deeply enmeshed in each other\u2019s lives, one aware that he will soon be left alone. Interspersed with their story are brief sections devoted to Central Park where Abe and Jane have spent so many hours \u2013 another love story of sorts full of characters, nature, performance and celebration. It\u2019s a place Soffer clearly adores. Not an easy novel to write about \u2013 I don\u2019t feel I\u2019ve entirely done it justice \u2013 but it\u2019s one that will stay with me for some time.<\/p>\n<p>Serpent\u2019s Tail London 9781805224921 304 pages Hardback (read via NetGalley)<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-block sd-like jetpack-likes-widget-wrapper jetpack-likes-widget-unloaded\" id=\"like-post-wrapper-52859811-33719-67cc7dad21bda\" data-src=\"https:\/\/widgets.wp.com\/likes\/?ver=14.4#blog_id=52859811&amp;post_id=33719&amp;origin=alifeinbooks.co.uk&amp;obj_id=52859811-33719-67cc7dad21bda\" data-name=\"like-post-frame-52859811-33719-67cc7dad21bda\" data-title=\"Like or Reblog\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Like this:<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"button\"><span>Like<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"loading\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sd-text-color\"\/><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica Soffer\u2019s This Is a Love Story is an exploration of a long marriage between an artist and a writer, played out against a New York City background. Knowing that she\u2019s dying, Jane tells Abe she wants to remember their many decades together, the good times and the bad, many spent in their brownstone apartment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[27183,4629,6921,3836,465,53197,53198,53199,3972,3841],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-120426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-american-contemporary-fiction","tag-dont","tag-jessica","tag-jessica-soffer","tag-love","tag-marriage-in-fiction","tag-serpents-tail","tag-soffer","tag-story","tag-this-is-a-love-story"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: \u2018Don\u2019t go\u2019 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: \u2018Don\u2019t go\u2019 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jessica Soffer\u2019s This Is a Love Story is an exploration of a long marriage between an artist and a writer, played out against a New York City background. Knowing that she\u2019s dying, Jane tells Abe she wants to remember their many decades together, the good times and the bad, many spent in their brownstone apartment [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-08T17:26:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/This-Is-a-Love-Story.webp.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"312\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\"},\"headline\":\"This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: \u2018Don\u2019t go\u2019\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-08T17:26:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426\"},\"wordCount\":551,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/This-Is-a-Love-Story.webp.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"American contemporary fiction\",\"Dont\",\"Jessica\",\"Jessica Soffer\",\"LOVE\",\"Marriage in fiction\",\"Serpent's Tail\",\"Soffer\",\"story\",\"This Is a Love Story\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Books\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120426\",\"name\":\"This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer: \u2018Don\u2019t go\u2019 - 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