Sam Leith Sam Leith

For better, for worse

Love Stories, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell In Bed With: Unashamedly Sexy Stories by Your Favourite Women Novelists, edited by Imogen Edwards-Jones, Jessica Adams, Kathy Lette and Maggie Alderson<br type="_moz" />

issue 14 February 2009

Love Stories, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell

In Bed With: Unashamedly Sexy Stories by Your Favourite Women Novelists, edited by Imogen Edwards-Jones, Jessica Adams, Kathy Lette and Maggie Alderson

When Kurt Vonnegut was interviewed by the Paris Review in 1977, he was asked: ‘Let’s talk about the women in your books.’ ‘There aren’t any,’ he replied. ‘No women, no love.’ He described this as ‘a mechanical problem’:

I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don’t want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that’s the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.

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