From A. K. Herman, shortlisted for the 2025 OMC Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Fiction, a collection of insightful, sensual and unsettling stories that explore longing, the peculiar human ache.
In "Keepsake," a waitress and a sailor form an erotic bond out of survival and maybe a little help from the supernatural. In "The Rules" a daughter follows her mother's twelve strict rules to secure a husband. In "Dance," a young woman uses seduction to create rules of her own. In "Speedo," a necklace heals a man's mind, and reveals truths he wants to forget. In "Up Down," Indigenous people revolt against the Capuchin forced labor system with deadly and disturbing results. A devoted husband in "The Both," searches for a way to keep both his wives, and himself, happy. In "Small Castles," a live-in nanny is caught between fraying bonds with her host-family and powerful external forces. And in the title story, a lover's sudden death forces an old man to return to the past and confront the roots of his own painful longing.
A mesmerizing, and, at times, surreal collection, How to Lose at Longing, reveals an author in command of the written word with emotionally resonant prose and characters, you'll be thinking about long after the last word.