Troubled Lovers in History demonstrates an exhilarating range: from the briefest of lyrics to rich and multipartite narrative adventures in exotic realms; from a comic ditsy monologue spoken in immigrant "Yinglish" to a soulful elegy set in San Antonio's Pearl Beer brewery plant; from Martian invaders, through polar explorers, to all of us busy inflicting "words with edges" on those we love. Goldbarth sets his unflinching study of individual hope and grief against the backdrop of history: the travels of Marco Polo; Bertha and Wilhelm Rontgen's discovery of X-rays; an 1800 battle "twixt Dragon Sam, the great Exhaler of Gouts of Amazing Flame ... and Liquid Dan, the Living Geyser."

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