3 Review(s)

Dale Kushner's novel The Conditions of Love traces the journey of a girl from childhood to adulthood as she reckons with her parents' abandonment, her need to break from society's limitations, and her overwhelming desire for spiritual and erotic love. At an early age Eunice encounters the difficult truths of loss and disappointment, and through an innate sense of her own worth, she perseveres. While working in a small-town grocery store, Eunice meets Fox, a sheep farmer and artist twice her age. She enters into not only an erotic relationship with him but a soulful love that eventually has to withstand the trials of a brutal accident. Within her unconventional life with Fox, Eunice finds herself as an artist and as a young woman undaunted in bringing her art to the larger world. This engaging examination of a mother and daughter's relationship will appeal to the same audience that embraced Mona Simpson's acclaimed classic Anywhere But Here and Elizabeth Strout's bestselling Amy and Isabelle.