The Many-Splendored Thing

Love….some give it, some have it, some lose it, all want it. These twenty-one short stories explore its kaleidoscopic moods and variations. To lovers, it’s serious. To observers it’s ofttimes funny. Among the young and old, past and present, foreign and familiar, the emotion appears with many facets—curiosity, longing, hope, sentiment, playfulness, excitement, bliss, elation, obscenity, guile, suspicion, jealously, cruelty, sadness, loss. So kaleidoscopic are the moods even in a single affair that one is hard put to describe the phenomenon adequately in a single novel. And to explore all the possible settings and variations in one tale is impossible. Thus short stories have been chosen here as the vehicle to cover the waterfront, so to speak, as we set sail for the stormy waters of lust, romance, and love. One theme, however, is ever present—two hearts inseparably entwined.