Wow loved these short stories….. Set in modern-day America and France, Renaissance Italy and Boxer Rebellion China, these stories embrace whole lifetimes, much in the manner of Alice Munro and William Trevor.

Joan Silber skilfully and subtly ties one story to the next, as a minor element in one becomes a major element in the next, until the last is tied convincingly to the first. Intense in subject yet restrained in tone, they are about longings - often held for years - and the ways in which sex and religion can become parallel forms of dedication and comfort.

From a wannabe dancer in contemporary New York City to missionaries in China, Ideas of Heaven showcases Joan Silber's extraordinary deftness as she illuminates love, faith and sex with great originality and profundity.

This was a great short story collection, narrated in first person and all of them around the topic of love. I loved how all of them ended up connected to each other!

This is an excellent short story collection from the talented Joan Silber, featuring 6 stories, all subtly and imaginatively interlinked, and coming full circle, forming a ring, when the last story connects with the first. The stories are:

My Shape - about the need to be a dancer
The High Road - about a dance instructor's infatuation
Gaspara Stampa - of love and poetry
Ashes of Love- becoming parents
Ideas of Heaven - missionaries in China during the Boxer Rebellion
The Same Ground - of faith and coming full circle

The collection is beautifully written, first person stories, with a wide range of disparate and complex characters and perspectives, with their own set of issues, tone and distinct voices, and set in a diverse set of locations that include California, New York, France, Italy and set through time in different historical periods such as Renaissance Venice. The universal themes coalesce around and focus on love, sex, religion and desire, often treading on the familiar and common territory of the sacred and the devotional.
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I found these short stories to be profound, emotionally impactful, heartbreaking, engaging, thought provoking and fascinating, wonderfully pieced together, threaded with the humanity, intelligence and compassion of the author, and which I recommend highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Ideas of Heaven is a thought-provoking collection of interlinked short stories set all around the world. I think fans of authors such as Alice Munro would enjoy this.