Robin Black, May 2010

I loved Robin Black’s story collection, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, but I fell hard for her debut novel, Life Drawing.

Really, how could I not adore the story of a marriage between a painter and a writer written with lots of interiority and lots of honesty. The characters are as flawed as we are, and there are no easy answers anywhere.

The opening paragraph paints a picture that stuck with me not only the length of the book, but is still with me even now, years after I finished the novel.

In the days leading up to my husband Owen’s death, he visited Alison’s house every afternoon. I would watch him trudge over the small, snowy hill between our two properties, half the time away from me, half the time toward me. And I would wonder what he thought about as he went. Wonder too if Alison watched him from a window of her own, and whether the expression she saw on his face as he approached was very different from the one I saw as he came home.

You’ll find more about Robin’s wonderful story collection here: If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This. And more here about Life Drawing. To read how Robin spent one of her days back in 2010, click here: How We Spend Our Days: Robin Black.

Because we both wrote first novels about a marriage and because I adored hers, I’m especially proud that she loved mine. I’m grateful for Robin’s stories–long and short–and for her support of mine.