Michael Taeckens (Ed.): Love is a Four-Letter Word: True Stories of Breakups, Bad Relationships and Broken Hearts

Love stinks, but it’s really funny

Comedy and tragedy intertwine in these tales of mankind’s most enduring pitfall: failed romance. Love is a Four-Letter Word is written with the wry insight that comes from looking back at failed relationships—the authors laugh at their stupid mistakes, but it’s clear they haven’t lost the despair they felt as heartbroken lovers

You won’t find stories of jilted exes slashing car tires—that melodrama is best saved for daytime TV. Instead, editor Taeckens treats us to the clever, comedic and urbane. He may too often select wit over pathos, but in doing so he creates a more complex view of humankind’s central emotion.

Whether set on a train-station platform or in a New York apartment, these stories are our stories. As Dan Kennedy writes in “Exactly like Liz Phair, Except Older. And with Hypochondria,” “When it came to matters of the heart, everyone on earth was simply doing their best.”