Louis, Laura Glen

PERSONAL: Born in Macau S.A.R. (Special Administrative Region), China; immigrated to United States; married; children: one son.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harcourt, 6277 Sea Harbor Dr., Orlando, FL 32887.

CAREER: Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Katherine Anne Porter Prize, 1990, for short story "Verge."

WRITINGS:

Talking in the Dark: Stories, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2001.

Work represented in anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, 1994 and 1997.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Laura Glen Louis was born in China and immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong as a child. Many of the characters in the eight stories of her first collection, Talking in the Dark: Stories, are also Chinese American. The stories are about love and loss and vulnerability, and several feature middle-aged men who leave their wives for younger women. The title story features a woman who seeks comfort from her married doctor when her husband abandons her. The story "Fur," which is about a man whose dead wife's mink coat is taken by a gold-digging young woman, was chosen for inclusion in the 1994 edition of Best American Short Stories. Other stories include a tale about a woman who allows herself to be seduced by her daughter's boyfriend, a couple who lose their baby to crib death, and a young tennis player who becomes the object of an older man's obsession.

Reviewing Talking in the Dark, Will Blythe wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Louis's "prose aims for a kind of poetic intensity. The best stories here keep the rhetoric fierce and astringent." Boston Review critic Randall Curb described the book as "a debut collection of lean, sinewy prose and tightly compressed emotional implications, all related to matters of the heart."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Boston Review, April-May, 2001, Randall Curb, review of Talking in the Dark: Stories.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2001, review of Talking in the Dark, p. 133.

Library Journal, January 1, 2001, Debbie Bogenschutz, review of Talking in the Dark, p. 160.

New York Times Book Review, July 15, 2001, Will Blythe, review of Talking in the Dark.

Publishers Weekly, February 19, 2001, review of Talking in the Dark, p. 67.

Washington Post Book World, April 8, 2001, Elizabeth Roca, review of Talking in the Dark, p. T13.