In Love

"Hayes, a master of psychological prose, seems to have cherished few illusions. The fictional world of In Love is one of brief pleasures and bleak self-knowledge, of discoveries nearly made or made too late His authorial gaze is so penetrating that it s practically carcinogenic: you get the feeling that it could, while revealing someone s insides, disassemble atoms, mutate cells the illumination of pain leaving scars of its own." Brian Patrick Eha, City Journal

"The story of a casual love affair that becomes serious as soon it starts to fall apart, In Loveharks back to a classic French tradition what you might call the Novel of Disillusionment perfected over a century by Constant, Flaubert, Turgenev, and Proust, among others. At the same time, in its use of one-sided dialogue, its film noir sensibility, and its evocation of New York life, this 1953 masterpiece also seems utterly modern a culmination and a book utterly at home in its moment."  Lorin Stein, The Paris Review

It s a ruthlessly observant novel with heart-stoppingly good sentences Hayes description of a failed trip the two lovers took to the Jersey Shore is one of the greatest scenes of romantic alienation ever written. He pinpoints the desperate desire for love and the recognition that it is slipping away with magnificent precision: It is one of the most confusing states two people can encounter, and to see it rendered in words is rare and lovely. Katie Roiphe, Slate

"One of the greatest, bleakest breakup stories ever told." The New York Observer
 
I ve rarely seen the breakdown of a relationship, in all its banality and pettiness, evoked more vividly. It s tough, fresh, very lovely, and will stay with you. Sadie O. Stein, The Paris Review Daily

A fever chart of an affair records all the fluctuations of feelings which are intimate and intense, expectant and often disabused, cruel and vulnerable, and brings to the heat of passion a cooler scrutiny which comes with its conclusion. . . . A tour de force. Kirkus Reviews

Like Raymond Carver at his best, novelist-cum-screenwriter Alfred Hayes addresses the human condition and its heartbreaks with brevity and brutal honesty. In Love was Hayes s fourth novel, and as the story unfolds, there is a dreadful sense that the middle-aged protagonist is heading for disaster by falling in love with a younger girl who inhabits a world from which he is excluded. When a rival appears, in the shape of a millionaire with an indecent proposal, the cynicism and misery of the situation become almost unbearable. The Guardian

Maybe the old canard that the best love letters are those written when we are out of love goes for the novel too. If so, Alfred Hayes has written a smashing success. In this, his latest novel, he examines some of the states of mind, body, and soul which accompany love, without falling for all that nonsense about affection, intimacy, trust and all the simple pleasures known to people less sophisticated than the characters in his book. The New York Times

[A] noirish masterpiece which combines a plot that prefigures Indecent Proposal with the desolate milieu of an Edward Hopper painting. The Guardian

In Love is strange, unsettling, cynical and sad. It is a masterpiece. But if you are in love and want to believe, then don t read it. The Times (London)
 
This is a marvelously well wrought novel; there are not many current books so completely finished in terms of verbal felicities. Chicago Tribune

A little masterpiece. Elizabeth Bowen
 
Besides being a technical tour de force, In Love is literature; it is a work of art. Julian Maclaren-Ross, The Sunday Times
 
Quite the best he has written. The Times Literary Supplement
 
Moving and convincing...a lyrical, intelligent book. The Guardian

Hayes has done for bruised men what Jean Rhys does for bruised women, and they both write heartbreakingly beautiful sentences. Paul Bailey, The Guardian
 
A very remarkable novel; altogether outstanding in the unwavering concentration with which it pursues the problem of the reality of love. The story is stripped down to its bare essentials.... Quite unforgettable. John Lehmann, BBC