Flashback Friday is a weekly tradition started here at Bookshelf Fantasies, focusing on showing some love for the older books in our lives and on our shelves. If you’d like to join in, just pick a book published at least five years ago, post your Flashback Friday pick on your blog, and let us all know about that special book from your reading past and why it matters to you. Don’t forget to link up!

This week on Flashback Friday:

The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
(published 2000)

 Synopsis (Goodreads):

Late one night, Charlie Baxter wakes with a start from a bad dream and decides to take a walk through his Ann Arbor neighborhood. After catching sight of two lovers entangled together on the fifty-yard line of the football field, he comes upon Bradley W. Smith, a friend and a fellow insomniac, who convinces Charlie to listen to the first of many tales that will become a luminous narrative of love in its sublime, agonizing, and eternal complexity.

We meet Kathryn, Bradley’s first wife, who leaves her husband for another woman, and Diana, Bradley’s second wife, whose cold, secretive nature makes her more suitable as a mistress than as a spouse. We meet Chloé and Oscar, whose dreams for their future together are more traditional than their multiple body piercings and wild public displays of affection might suggest. We meet Esther and Harry Ginsberg, Bradley’s neighbors, whose love for their lost son persists despite his hatred of them. Bradley, ex-husband, employer, and friend, on his journey toward conjugual happiness. The community of souls found in The Feast of Love is unforgettable – as is the perfect symphony their harmonized voices create.

The Feast of Love is one of those books that I might not have discovered were it not for a book group (now defunct, may it rest in peace) composed of a really interesting mix of folks with lots of different preferences and reading habits. I don’t remember who picked this one, but I do remember that it was one of the most outstanding book group picks over the course of the three or four years that the group was active.

In The Feast of Love, the stories of the different couples weave together with a lovely, odd rhythm that’s almost dreamlike in the telling. It took me a while to unravel whose story this really was, but that didn’t matter. Over the course of this beautiful book, the characters come to life, and it’s a community of sorts that’s built by slowly unveiling the unexpected connections between them all.

The writing is wonderful, and the love stories, both triumphant and tragic, are unforgettable.

What flashback book is on your mind this week?

Note from your friendly Bookshelf Fantasies host: To join in the Flashback Friday fun:

• Grab the Flashback Friday button
• Post your own Flashback Friday entry on your blog (and mention Bookshelf Fantasies as the host of the meme, if you please!)
  
• Leave your link in the comments below
  
• Check out other FF posts… and discover some terrific hidden gems to add to your TBR piles!

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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I’m building a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!