The Invention of Love
“This was a collection I couldn’t wait to return to, as soon as I finished one story, I was eager for the next. Schaff has a sublime mastery of prose, and the language she uses has the perfect touch of brevity, while still drumming up strong evocative emotions for the experiences her characters face. Every single character felt real for me, and I immediately felt connected to their story.”
Cover Design: Jayme Cawthern
Cover Art: “Insulation,” by Thuy-Van Vu
Praise for The Invention of Love:
"In prose that is direct and honest, the stories reach toward strands of emotion buried within or tightly encircling the characters, breathing them alive. This is a breathtaking act, and it is the reason to keep turning the pages." —Karin Cecile Davidson, Newfound
"Deftly touching across a wide variety of themes centered on love, Schaff calls our attention to the unexpected ways love can show up in our lives. This was a superb collection..."
—Elaine Mead, Bookslut
"This thrilling thirst for artistry is a common theme in the collection, and something that Schaff handles with great tenderness. Her characters are hungry to experience soul-shaking intimacy through the conduits of art, literature, conversation, and creation."
—Brenna McPeek, Necessary Fiction
"Sara Schaff’s The Invention of Love pulls together crisply-drawn women protagonists across 14 stories that pulse with longing." —Amanda Uhle, Literary Hub
"Schaff ’s protagonists are women driven to the edges of grief, envy, failure, and desperation, whether that desperation is for closeness, for revenge, or for jeans with glitter on the back pockets. With a sensibility at once dryly comic and tender, Schaff touches on collective wounds as raw as the #MeToo movement, the Great Recession, and the 2016 election."
—Nora Kipnis, Rain Taxi Review
"The Invention of Love is a powerful and beautiful collection of stories." —Aleks and the Books
What is love, if not an invention—not just a human instinct but an artful construction? The women who people The Invention of Love, Sara Schaff's second story collection, long to conceive of themselves as artists, as lovers, as good sisters and daughters—while contending with financial insecurity and the reality of twenty-first century womanhood. A college student finds her voice as an artist through a tiny lie. A woman grieves her mother's death by shopping for houses she can't afford and will never live in. Against the backdrop of the 2016 election, a copywriter contends with misogyny in the workplace by using that very misogyny against her incompetent male boss. Nostalgic for the women they were or might have been—or still might yet become—their stories illuminate the moments where everything changes—even when what changes is how we must see our futures.
The Latest!
Sara talks to DIYMFA’s Gabriela Pereira about writing workshop best practices, Sara’s experiences of the workshop as teacher & student, and writing The Invention of Love.
For The Other Stories Podcast, Sara reads her story, “The End of the Workshop,” and talks to host Ilana Masad about gate-keeping, misogyny in the workshop, and more.
Tune in to Sara’s conversation with Brad King on the Downtown Writers Jam podcast.
“A Conversation about Childcare, Self-Expectations, and the Fragility of American Systems”: read Sara in conversation with Amanda Uhle at LitHub.
Check out Sara’s profile of Thuy-Van Vu, the artist behind “Insulation,” the painting on the cover of The Invention of Love, in Catapult.
Martha Stuit interviewed Sara for Pulp.
Watch Let’s Talk Books with host Christina Chiu, in conversation with David Daley, Sara Schaff, and Alia Volz, about the (myth of) the American Dream.
The Invention of Love made Kenyon Review’s list of Summer Reading Recommendations!
Listen to Sara’s interview with North Country Public Radio’s Monica Sandreczki about hope and despair, The Invention of Love, and the myth of American triumphalism.