Alphabet of Love Serial by Lou Rowan ff. Most letters in this collection of short fiction have their own story. A and B, however, appear together as human algebraic unknowns and X and Y are Cartesian coordinates in a graph of failure and accomplishment. In between we encounter the other letters-characters, their relationships and families, their thoughts and feelings. Some characters reoccur. B comes back as the friend of I’s sister and as the partner of M (I think) , and I, himself, changes from a third person I to a first person I. The human comedy is on display from a cultish religion to tentative attempts to pursue attraction to jealousy to betrayal to utter vulnerability. The story of O depicts what the slide to an alcoholic bottom feels like. Fastidious I disapproves of so much – that one would have a dog (ruining the planet) that Q would offer his kidney to R, who recklessly skips dialysis, or that the adored ballet dancer T would be sloppy with food. Of the many delights that come at you with frequency, my favorite is “I thank God for inventing secular humanism. . .”
Thanks, Marge. Seattle has more dogs than children, but my partner Andrea has forbidden me to read "QR" here, since dogs, unlike poor secular humans, can do no wrong.