The Failure of Love

David Goicoechea is a professor of philosophy at Brock University in St.
Catharines.

A delightful book. A smooth and captivating read. It’s about the sort
of characters the apocalyptic Jesus would hang out with. These six
stories speak with varied voices about desperation and compassion, about
death and survival, about mourning and writing. The first, an intriguing
detective story about a missing child, reveals how an attractive
cheerleader became a nightmarish mother in a maze of mirrored murder.
The second keeps looking over its shoulder to see if a totally calloused
father will be there at the burial of his three small children, who were
burned to death in the house fire of his neglect. The third shrieks out
“As a Sound You Might Hear at the End of the World” as we come to
see why a sadistic 14-year-old boy kicks an old man to death just for
the hatred of it. The fourth is the story of the death of a cub scout
leader, whose journey through time mysteriously mixed the walking out of
his wife and the pursuit of another female that was either cause or
effect. The fifth doubles and redoubles the downward rhythm of the luck
of an old fighter, who at 16 gave Joe Louis four good rounds and who
could have been heavyweight champion of the world if he had only lived
like a priest. The sixth is about the writer’s failed story, whose
failure he finally fathoms in the memory of a mourning face—the face
of someone whom he had betrayed but who survived. This final story
throws into focus the mourning and not-so-mourning faces of the previous
stories. The Failure of Love is concerned with religious, moral, and
humanistic values. It would be an excellent text for high-school
students of Canadian Literature. It can be a sobering, uplifting
pleasure for any reader.