Roxanne reviews Love Like That by
Emma Duffy-Comparone
Love Like That is a new super fresh short story compilation by author Emily Duffy-Comparone. If you’ve never heard her name before, that’s ok, because you’ll know her very well eventually. Her writing is so astonishingly honest and brazenly original that she’s a shoe-in for future literary awards.
Emily breaks down relationships and the dysfunction of folks with a tenderness I haven’t seen since George Saunders first came into my reading radar. To be able to break your heart and mend it back together again in under 15 pages is nothing short of a magic trick. Emily specializes in this anthology with sibling love in two separate stories; one of a sister and brother caretaking endeavor and the other of triplet sisters.
Emily’s three distinctly different teacher stories were so on-point (I spent thirty years working in that profession) that I was portaled back with immediacy thanks to her gorgeous descriptions and characterizations. I loved the stories so much that I am not too proud to beg someone (pick me!) to adapt them for the theater or the screen. Emily Duffy-Comparone’s prose is much too superb to leave flatly on the page. But start there, because this woman’s a genius!