THE FEAST OF LOVE by Charles Baxter

This is my first Charles Baxter novel, but it most certainly will not be my last.  In fact, I wish all novels could be as good as this one, as I completely fell in love with the writing style.  Every sentence is a splendidly written gem, and the characters are splendid as well.  I think there are about ten main characters, and they connect with one another in a closely woven narrative that is not exactly a plot.  It’s more along the lines of the movie Love Actually.  It starts out as Bradley’s story, but then it branches out to include the stories of other people in his life, including his two ex-wives, their lovers, his neighbors, and two young people who work in his mall coffee shop.  All of the characters are completely unique and easy to distinguish from one another.  Part of the fun of this novel is figuring out who is narrating each chapter, but their identity becomes obvious pretty quickly from context.  I think that I could read this novel many times, just for the sheer joy that the language delivers.  Bradley may be the fulcrum of the novel, but his satellite characters are more colorful.  For such a nice guy, he seems to be somewhat clueless and insensitive.  For example, he takes his first wife to visit the animal shelter, in spite of the fact that she is extremely afraid of dogs.  In that same vein, he takes his second wife to a remote B&B for their honeymoon, completely ignoring her phobia of open spaces.  These adventures seem a little torturous on the surface, but Bradley thinks he will somehow cure both wives of their fears, and, honestly, these uncomfortable situations make for some great reading.  Humor abounds here, but the author does not shy away from human tragedy and addresses it with a clear-eyed directness while also offering hope that the grief will one day morph into a new beginning.