"The Feast of Love"

Charles Baxter is a writer I have been vaguely aware of, but I have read very little of his work. He is the author of several novels, short story collections, and poetry collections, as well as nonfiction. I have just finished reading his novel "The Feast of Love" (Pantheon, 2000), which I enjoyed. Although it is a novel, it is a sort of collection of interlocking short stories. Each chapter is told from a different point of view; the main characters have more chapters and the minor characters fewer. The story is set in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to which I feel a connection as I lived in that area for my last two years of high school, and have visited a good friend there many times over the years; this sense of connection and familiarity added to my enjoyment of the book. The novel is seemingly self-referential, as the author himself lived and taught in Ann Arbor for about a decade, and as the framing storyteller/writer in the novel itself is named "Charlie." The book is divided into five parts: Preludes, Beginnings, Middles, Ends, and Postludes, and is loosely a "reimagined 'Midsummer Night's Dream'"; this is not immediately obvious, but once one makes the connection (and it had to be pointed out to me), the echoes and signs are there. Shared topics and aspects include love, loss, sleep, insomnia, dreams, foretellings, unexpected connections, death, reversals, and resolutions. When I was reading the first pages of this novel, I was not sure I was going to like it, but I was gradually drawn into the story. The best thing about it is its compelling characters, who are individual, quirky, vulnerable but strong; they are not always sympathetic, but the author allows us to understand and feel a connection with each of them.