Love’s Labour

Luminous and necessary stories from the psychoanalyst's consulting room; on desire, heartbreak and learning how to love.

When it comes to love why do we find things so difficult? Drawing on over forty years of candid and surprising conversations with his patients, Stephen Grosz asks, what gets in the way of our falling in love? And what must we do to stay there?

In the intimate space of the consulting room, we meet the woman who can’t post her wedding invitations but then, decades later, can’t decide whether to get divorced; the friendship group that explodes when an adulterous affair begins; and the man whose partner’s death is almost too much to bear.

As an analyst, Grosz’s unerring ability is to locate what ails the heartsick. As a writer, he elegantly shows how we can deploy the agonies of love as tools for understanding.

The labour of love is the work of a lifetime but in finally learning to see ourselves and our world clearly, we find we are truly ready to love one another.

Review

'Full of moments of revelation that stay with you forever ... It would not be humanly possible for me to recommend his work more highly' ― India Knight

'This is a beautiful book' ― Nigella Lawson

Love’s Labour is a hopeful book and all the more convincingly so because it promises relatively small shifts rather than miraculous recoveries ― The Times

‘Reading Stephen Grosz is a deep sort of pleasure, and this book's movingly told true stories left me feeling wiser and more open to life’ ― Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks

Chilling, moving, unforgettably… what a privilege it is for the reader to catch a glimpse of this process ― Guardian

'Full of thought prompts and ideas that resonate long after you finish the book ... It’s a strange, thoughtful, deeply compelling book' ― Pandora Sykes

‘Grosz’s transfixing stories will increase your openness to and aptitude for the greatest of all emotions: you will be better at love after you read this book’ ― Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

‘This is a special book, full of little epiphanies. Grosz combines illuminating stories from therapy with such beautiful writing that you forget these people are his patients and not fictional characters. He reminds us how complex love is, how much it requires of us, and how many times we can misunderstand each other – and ourselves – in the process. It's a love story about the relationship between lovers, between a therapist and patient, and between us all, if we are brave enough to attempt it’ ― Natasha Lunn, author of Conversations on Love

A fascinating examination of this process [of psychoanalysis] in action… Grosz is a captivating writer whose understated vignettes often capture the complexities of the human condition ― New Scientist

About the Author

Stephen Grosz is a practicing psychoanalyst - he has worked with patients for more than forty years. Born in America, he was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Oxford University, and now lives in London. His Number One Sunday Times bestseller, The Examined Life,has been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in London.