Jes­si­ca Soffer’s This Is A Love Sto­ry is a pro­found med­i­ta­tion on mar­riage, moth­er­hood, and artis­tic ambi­tion. It is a nov­el, yes, but it is also an epic poem, a char­ac­ter study, and a sparkling ode to New York.

There is no ques­tion that Sof­fer is a gift­ed writer with an ear for strik­ing lan­guage, but she also impress­es in her abil­i­ty to craft a nov­el that feels authen­tic. Sto­ries as lyri­cal and lit­er­ary as this one can some­times stray into ter­ri­to­ry that feels too lofty. But This Is A Love Sto­ry suc­ceeds, in part, by incor­po­rat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties and relat­able minu­ti­ae of every­day life: the con­fu­sion and guilt of post­par­tum depres­sion, the joy that an inse­cure moth­er expe­ri­ences when gift­ed with the tini­est moment of con­nec­tion with a dif­fi­cult child, the upheaval caused by a can­cer diag­no­sis, and the ter­ri­ble ways our bod­ies betray us — both in sick­ness and in health.

Soffer’s nov­el is the sto­ry of Jane and Abe, an old­er cou­ple mar­ried for decades. Jane is a bril­liant, well-known artist, and Abe is an award-win­ning writer. In many ways, their lives are a New York city fairy tale, at least for any­one with cre­ative aspi­ra­tions. And yet, even a union as charmed as this one is not with­out com­pli­ca­tions or sor­row. When the book begins, Jane is dying, and Abe, her pri­ma­ry care­giv­er, is spend­ing his days at her bed­side, shar­ing mem­o­ries of their fifty years togeth­er. The sto­ry alter­nates between Abe’s mem­o­ries and Jane’s, as well as the impres­sions of their adult son Max, a suc­cess­ful but emo­tion­al­ly closed-off art deal­er who feels like a foot­note in his par­ents’ sto­ry instead of a deserv­ing main char­ac­ter. Max wants very lit­tle to do with his par­ents, despite liv­ing a life close­ly adja­cent to theirs. 

Cen­tral Park plays a key role in the nov­el, with vital rec­ol­lec­tions of its own. Many of Jane and Abe’s most sig­nif­i­cant moments, both indi­vid­u­al­ly and as a cou­ple, are forged in this leg­endary green oasis. But the park has count­less oth­er sto­ries to tell, remind­ing the read­er of the end­less vari­ety of the human experience.

The mem­o­ries Jane and Abe share run the gamut from del­i­cate and roman­tic to mun­dane and painful — muse­um exhi­bi­tions and swanky cel­e­bra­tions merge with trips to the gro­cery store, bleed­ing, and bed­pans. In one sense, their life togeth­er feels almost enchant­ed, but ulti­mate­ly, it is as ordi­nary and finite as any­one else’s. 

In the end, Soffer’s nov­el reminds us of the beau­ty that accom­pa­nies life’s small­est — and some­times ugli­est — moments. Even bad mem­o­ries can be good ones in a love sto­ry as splen­did as this one.