Kevin Canty is a master of the short story whose work has been compared to that of Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver. In Where the Money Went , he surprises us with stories about love and the desertion of love, all written from a man’s point of view. Rarely is a man so revealing.

A narrator struggles with his abiding loyalty to his ex-wife, even when he finds love with another woman. A newly divorced man learns more than he wants to know about his friends’ long-term marriages. In these nine stories, which incisively touch on the complex nature of love, we find men as fathers, as husbands, and as lovers, trying their best in a world that stubbornly refuses to make sense. Canty, whose writing has been praised as “smart, gritty, unsentimental” ( New York Times ), “lovely and unforgiving” ( Boston Globe ), and “enchanting and painful” ( USA Today ), powerfully conveys both the bitterness that can afflict romantic relationships, and the moments of humor and tenderness that cut through it.