Like Raymond Carver, Thompson is fascinated by the sudden and unlikely communion of people. Her characters vary–there are junkies, cops, women who’ve lost men to drugs, religion and everything else–but she never condescends to them, no matter how hungry their hearts are, no matter how many screws they have loose. The best stories here are so sympathetic and true that they glow a little.
Thompson, 49, teaches at the University of Illinois. She’s previously published a pair of novels and two other collections, but “Who Do You Love” is her first book in 15 years. “It would be nice if that made me sound like a reclusive genius who had to be persuaded to publish all this stuff,” she says. “But actually it was more a matter of trying to find someone who would go for it.” Thompson has spent the past half-dozen years looking for a publisher, and making a few thousand dollars a year from her writing. Her fiction may never make her rich, but “Who Do You Love” is still a gold mine.
