Michael Martone of Michael Martone
That forward slash-the pointed grout between Love and Imperfect-is telling punctuation bifurcating the title of this finely honed collection. These stories define definition, edge edgy. The stories bound over boundaries, effortless osmosis, transmitting the erotic fluidity of desire, loss, memory, time. Christopher T. Leland's lyrical fictions cleave. They tear you up/they bind you back together, line-by-line."
Douglas Unger of Leaving the Land and Looking for War and Other Stories
In Love/Imperfect, Leland proves he's a virtuoso at rendering the sensual rhythms possible in beautiful language. His new collection reads like a finely cut jewel each facet of which casts light on a different love relationship, sexual experience, or desire, the whole thematically unified even as each fiction draws from a very diverse spectrum of eras, settings, and sensitively written lives. These tales are, indeed, about imperfect loves, shaded by nostalgic longing for lost or unrequited relationships, intense physical passions, and awe at the rarity of true, lasting love. Leland's pitch and range are perfect for each variation on his theme, making Love/Imperfect a wonderfully rich collection-entertaining, brilliant, satisfying in every way."
2007) Dorene O\'Brien of Voices of the Lost and Found (Wayne State University Press
Compelling, original, and sweeping in its precise and poetic exploration of love. Leland takes us on a journey that is sometimes humorous and often painful, but we arrive at our destination with a certain and deeper understanding of the complexities of love in all of its manifestations."
2010) Laura Kasischke of Eden Springs (Wayne State University Press
There is a surprising edginess in Leland's stories that has nothing to do with their edgy subject matter, but with timing, the multitude of one-line paragraphs in which so much happens so swiftly. The many asides give the stories their strange power, as if they are being overheard rather than read."
