Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? (Art of the Story)

by Kathleen Collins

[inlibrisveritas]

Whatever Happened to Interracial Love is a collection of short stories by the late Kathleen Collins, with stories that revolve around being black. While the stories themselves have a timeless quality to them that I thought really worked in their favor, I will say that I had some issues with the style they were written.

Short story collections will always be a hit or miss gamble for me and this one was no different. These all have the same style to them that can only be described as ‘stream of consciousness’ and for some stories, this really works well…for others however it seems to work against the story itself. I will admit to expecting a bit more in how it would handle interracial relationships, given the title and the fact that I am the child of one such relationship. So in that angle, I was fairly disappointed, but I did appreciate the look into the messy way life moves. We see characters who struggle with identity, love, and depression and I think that several of the stories like The Uncle really shine.

Sadly this is a book that took me a long time to read especially when considering it’s short page length. The water-like flow of thoughts onto the page only served to make some stories move slower. It would touch briefly on the point, being to expound upon it only to veer a bit off course. The writing style does lend itself to hidden depths however and it’s definitely a collection to read more than once.

I feel this review is probably as hot and cold as my feelings about the collection itself. I didn’t hate anything but I can’t say I could recommend the whole collection either. It falls into this weird gray area for me and I’m rather glad I didn’t purchase it as I was tempted to do before I found it at the library.