The Secret Life of Love Songs — Tim Lucas

IN THE THEATER OF YOUR MIND, The Lecturer takes the stage to remark on the history and variety of the Love Song, pausing now and again to perform examples of his own. Each song is then overturned and interpreted like a Tarot card, the eventual spread telling the story of a fateful meeting and the metaphysical journey that overtook his emptiness after completing an album some ten years in the making.Originally written for a cancelled anthology of stories inspired by the work of Nick Cave, The Secret Life of Love Songs is the first new fiction by Tim Lucas (Throat Sprockets, The Book of Renfield) to appear in sixteen years.A meditation on modern love and its antecedents that is also a poignant evocation, a compassionate portrait of an obsessive, a tribute to popular music in all its forms, a redemptive fantasy, and even more than this in less than 80 pages of fine prose—I can only marvel. Give me some of your talent, Tim!—Ramsey CampbellAn enthralling reflection on the process of creativity, the mechanics of a love song, and the workings of the human heart. It's achingly beautiful. I was pulled in and completely carried away.—Pierre Fournier, artist and screenwriter, co-creator of Red KetchupIt is the goal of any writer to successfully describe the indescribable. A taste, a touch, a fear, a heartache. Usually, it takes dozens of pages of character-building and scene-setting before a reader can attune to the author's wavelength, but in this particular instance, Tim Lucas has described, defined and portrayed love with masterful tiny details amid brilliant broad strokes. He brings to life the majesty, the humility, the mystification of love in a sensual, yet chaste and poetic way. A delicious read.—Elizabeth Engstrom, author of Lizzie Borden and When Darkness Loves Us