In Love (New York Review Books Classics)
"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 Lovewas 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 prefiguresIndecent Proposalwith the desolate milieu of an Edward Hopper painting. ” —The Guardian “In Loveis 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 Loveis 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