The Careful Undressing of Love by Corey Ann Haydu (review)

Seven years ago, Lorna’s father died in a bombing that destroyed much of the area around Times Square in a contemporary New York with an alternative recent history. No one has been able to figure out who was responsible, but Lorna’s personal loss is thought to be related to a curse that began on her Brooklyn street during World War II; nearly every woman on that street, then and now, has lost the man she loves. As Lorna and her friends Charlotte and Isla try to protect themselves from love by bedding boys they have no intention of falling for, their friend Delilah sinks deeper into her grief for her dead boyfriend until she and other circumstances nearly convince them that they have only one choice. Haydu stylizes post-9/11 grief at an oblique angle here, surveying the irresistibility of tragedy tourism, scapegoating, and the dark beauty of young women touched by unspeakable loss. A step off the street shows how the culture has bought into the superstition, with horoscopes gaining currency, degrees offered in predictive arts, and the girls separated from their peers at school in case the curse is real. However, the book wallows, albeit beautifully, in sadness, and Lorna’s grief comes to an unsatisfyingly vague resolution that lacks narrative payoff. Nonetheless, you might give this to readers who revel in languorous, aestheticized melancholy.