Love Warps the Mind a Little

When Love Warps the Mind a Little opens, Lafayette Proulx has quit his day job, left his wife, hauled his dog and his Royal portable across town to Judi Dubey's house, and set out, at last, to be a fiction writer. But life is complicated. Laf spends a lot of his writing time staring out the window at his dog, Spot; Judi's dysfunctional family is unraveling; rejection letters from editors are coming in; and Judi, of all people, has sent him onto the marriage counselor's couch to sort out his angry feelings about his wife. To make matters worse, Judi is diagnosed with stage IV cancer. . Judi - she will break your heart and be remembered as one of the most lovable characters in American fiction - fights a heroic battle against the disease that becomes the backdrop for an exploration of illness, how it limits and expands our capacities for desire and passion, and love, its mystery and transparency, as Judi and Laf struggle to find the memory that will comfort, the truth that will redeem.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Romance. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.