Us: Americans Talk about Love

by John Bowe and Marisa Bowe

US, a collection of fascinating love stories from across America, as told to the oral historian John Bowe

From the wards of New Orleans to the cornfields of Iowa to the slopes of Colorado, from the raves of Los Angeles to the hollows of Appalachia and the canyons of Wall Street, Americans talk about love. Tortured teenagers, free-spirited octogenarians, anxious Navy wives, blue-blooded bohemians, horny-but-chaste pastors,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865479291
• ISBN13: 9780865479296
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

LOVE FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

It may be the full moon, or karma, or the stars were lined up in the right order, but whatever the cause, it is a wonderful book to come out for Valentine's Day. Did Bowe or his publisher plan it that way? I hope so. My wife and I have read a few segments together, and enjoyed it every time. It helped define love for us, and what keeps people together for the long haul, or in the short run as the case may be. It is also a good book to read a few pages at a time, and then pick it up when times and schedules permit. For me, it was a page turner, and I often found myself skipping other reading because I wanted to read the next love story...A good book for contemplation and meditation about your personal future with your loved one. Read it together like we did.

Bowe Let's The Lover's Speak

As I was reading these stories, I found myself feeling thankful that John Bowe didn't edit like a bad referee. You know what a bad referee is? It happens in basketball, when the referee, who is supposed to be there to help maintain just enough order and fairness so that the players' talent decides the outcome, instead, gets in the way of the players and makes poor calls. Instead of the referee letting the players play, he gets in the way and ruins a perfectly good game. A good referee, however, lets the players play! And a good editor/interviewer lets the person speak! John Bowe and his team of interviewers let the voice of the person come through in each fascinating interview, rather than mess it up by over-editing. It's refreshing to read the real voice of a person trying to share how he/she experiences love. The stories are raw and therefore, true to the person. Each story feels real, each person feels touchable, like a friend or somebody I know in my life. As I read more and more I realized I'm not alone. Love is everywhere and nowhere, at the same time! We feel it and don't understand it. We need it, and fear it. We will move heaven and earth to experience it, and go through hell not to lose it. Every human emotion explodes in this book like a volcano erupting; hot, scorching, cooling as time goes on. I recommend you read this book and reflect. Do you see yourself in any of these people? I did. Over and over. Sometimes that felt good, other times it felt bad. But never, did it feel numb. that's how I know it's human, it's alive!

Sweet, Smart, Fascinating

I so loved this book. It's like getting to see straight into the heart of America--or the many hearts of America, for one of its strengths is how very different and utterly compelling each one of the stories that are included here is. They're at times heartbreaking (the woman whose ill lover sent her away), other times astonishing for what they show about the depths of human strength and compassion humans (the same woman, whose new lover holds her while she cries), but together they renew your faith in life's vast possibility. I can't imagine anyone not liking this book, except for the black hearted or bitter. I just have to add, I really don't get the sour remarks of the reviewer who took exception to the inclusion of a drunken street person in here. I kind of loved that the book has him--if you live in New York, you pass street people every day and never stop to think what they're thinking or feeling. The fact that the author does and included the feelings/thoughts was kind of genius--by doing this, he humanizes what to many people are inhuman. And the remark about how "one basic task that quotes should do in any story - prove the writer's point with the voices of the people he/she interview"--but the book wonderfully lets the subjects speak for themselves. That's one of the delightful things about it: it doesn't impose the writer's point of view. And finally no point to the book? Yeah, yeah, tell it to William James, who didn't particularly have one either in "The Varieties of Religious Experience," where he set out to explore how individuals themselves perceive their own religious experiences. To say the book doesn't have a point is to overlook the fact that, taken together, the voices form a rich, beautiful fabric. And maybe that's the point.

Hope for love

I think everyone loves to hear stories about how so and so met, or how so and so stay together or not. As someone who went through blind dates and the other usual disappointments of 'finding love', I can read this from the comfort of having found 'it'. But I think this is a nice, witty, sometimes sad, sometimes funny collection of interviews- diving into the mystery of how things can work out, or not.

An unexpected page-turner

Each story in this book is a little gem. Some are sad, some are happy -- all kinds of people speak, in an astonishing variety of voices which in some mysterious way build upon each other the more you read. I knew I was interested in the book but I didn't really anticipate it being such a page-turner -- I couldn't wait to get back to it and read the next story. And reading them, you really do get an ever-so-slightly clearer idea about what love is. This would make a good valentine's day present.