The Museum of Marriage — C.W. Smith

The Museum of Marriage and Other Stories showcases characters struggling with the demands and mysteries of the solitary life, romance, and marriage. The young men of The Balcony Scene and Big Rig worry over their futures with those exotic creatures of another sex; the women in The Marriage Museum and Leave Me Be! wrestle with their emotional turmoil about their relationships. The collection's most uplifting picture of these very knotty human dilemmas comes in Suitors, where a young woman must choose between two equally worthy men. Having given her heart to a longtime but distant lover, she's unexpectedly attracted to another closer by. That he could arouse her interest was a little thrilling but also frightening, promising in equal measures the rosy pleasures of infatuation and the torment of feeling unfaithful.