Everybody Loves Somebody    by Joanna Scott Order:  USA  Can Back Bay, 2006 (2006) Softcover Read an Excerpt     Reviewed by Kerrily Sapet The scene opens to an idyllic seaside wedding. Two people torn asunder by World War I are finally united in marriage, awing everyone with the perfect moment of their kiss. Nearby a young boy romps with a Newfoundland dog and a baby crawls on the ground. The bride's father struggles to free himself from a locked bathroom and watch the ceremony. The author captures this moment in time, and extrapolates various possibilities during the scenes of the short story Heaven and Hell. This is the first of eleven such stories in Joanna Scott's book, Everybody Loves Somebody. Scott creatively shows a wide variety of different people searching for somebody to love. She writes about two doting, gambling aunts who play cards with an elderly diplomat intent on wooing their beautiful niece. She also writes about children as they are lost and found. Disappointment in love threads the way through many of Scott's stories, such as a young woman, recently moved to New York during the Jazz Age, who falls for her boss. Scott tells tales of men, women, and children as they look for someone to hold fast, be it a parent, a child, or a lover. Everybody Loves Somebody is Scott's most recent book, added to a collection that includes Liberation, Tourmaline, and The Manikin. It is well near impossible for every short story in a collection to connect every time with every reader. To expect that from any book would be unfair. However, for this reader, few of the characters resonated. They seemed to be caricatures of people viewed through blurry glass. Their motives were unclear, and with little character development it was difficult to feel engaged in the stories. That said however, Scott is a critically acclaimed author and a Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. With this book she has attempted to capture the inner tangled emotions of people spanning the twentieth century - in itself an admirable and fascinating undertaking. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews