Seven Loves » (Bargain)

Valerie Trueblood is a contributing editor to The American Poetry Review, and her essays, articles, and poetry have appeared in The Northwest Review, The Iowa Review, the Seattle Times, and Seattle Weekly, among others. She lives in Seattle.

Who most deeply affects our lives? Sometimes it is those who touch us briefly, even unexpectedly. For May Nilsson, these include the lover she takes in her forties; the handsome, troubled young rebel she is determined to rescue; the police officer who inadvertently plays a major role in her greatest catastrophe.


Moving back and forth in time, from May's childhood to her eighth decade, SEVEN LOVES weaves together the strands of an ordinary life made extraordinary by the complex passions that drive it.

Publishers Weekly

May Nilsson, a retired Seattle high school English teacher, looks back on her life through the episodic prism of those she has cherished. At center stage are May's mother, Anna, a fierce and uncompromising 1930s labor organizer, and May's son, Nick, a drug addict who plunges to a pathetic death to avoid arrest. When May was pregnant with Nick in 1960, she feared that his father might not be her husband, but her African-American lover, Nathanael, a high school principal and married father of six sons. May eventually embraces Arne, the penitent policeman who chased Nick to his death in a freezing lake. Loose plotting and overly lyrical language mar Trueblood's debut, but her depiction of May's most complex love, her husband, Cole, is keen and compelling. The pair's intensely passionate bond is evident even in their waning years after a lifetime of loss and betrayal. (June 21) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.