All Stories Are Love Stories: A Novel by Elizabeth Percer, Paperback

In this thoughtful, mesmerizing tale with echoes of Station Eleven, the author of An Uncommon Education follows a group of survivors thrown together in the aftermath of two major earthquakes that strike San Francisco within an hour of each other—an achingly beautiful and lyrical novel about the power of nature, the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring strength of love.

On Valentine’s Day, two major earthquakes strike San Francisco within the same hour, devastating the city and its primary entry points, sparking fires throughout, and leaving its residents without power, gas, or water.

Among the disparate survivors whose fates will become intertwined are Max, a man who began the day with birthday celebrations tinged with regret; Vashti, a young woman who has already buried three of the people she loved most . . . but cannot forgot Max, the one man who got away; and Gene, a Stanford geologist who knows far too much about the terrifying earthquakes that have damaged this beautiful city and irrevocably changed the course of their lives.

As day turns to night and fires burn across the city, Max and Vashti—trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium—must confront each other and face the truth about their past, while Gene embarks on a frantic search through the realization of his worst nightmares to find his way back to his ailing lover and their home.

Ellen Sussman

All Stories are Love Stories is a gripping novel, full of love for a group of wonderful characters and a shattered San Francisco. Elizabeth Percer’s beautiful writing and her overwhelming compassion enable us to take this harrowing journey through a very possible near future world.

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

In All Stories Are Love Stories, the faultlines run deep: secrets are laid bare, and regrets threaten to swallow a handful of characters caught in a devastating earthquake. You’ll hope for their survival, but you’ll pray that they’ll forgive each other—and themselves—before their crumbling city swallows them whole.

Meg Waite Clayton

Elizabeth Percer explores big themes of love, longing, loss, and, of course, survival. All Stories are Love Stories is a moving reminder of the way stories connect, and the way we connect through stories, as well as a gorgeous contemplation of the stabilizing force of love.

Edan Lepucki

Not only a vivid and frightening tale about a devastating earthquake, it’s also a love letter to San Francisco and a compassionate and thoughtful look into its characters’ lives and secret hearts. There is sweetness and hope among the ruins, and that makes Percer’s novel all the more compelling.

Washington Independent Review of Books

A stunning tale of perseverance and affection in the face of disaster...Her literary command, which also has elements of magical realism and the headlong suspense of a thriller, forces you to take your time...a book to savor.

San Francisco Chronicle

…gripping and affecting…Percer has delivered a heartfelt valentine to San Francisco, lyrical in its language, suspenseful in its incidents.

Shelf Awareness

[M]akes good on the promise of its title by reshaping a fictional disaster story into one of love . . . Even the most jaded reader can be moved by Percer’s conception of San Francisco.

Wellesley Magazine

Dazzlingly plotted and thematically rich . . . . Percer, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and author of An Uncommon Education (2012), compellingly delivers a story of love in the ruins.

Women's Day

This captivating, and at times heartrending, novel demonstrates the powerful forces of nature and love.

Sunset Magazine

This engaging novel is a thoughtful celebration of human spirit, the moving force of love, and a gentle reminder of the unstoppable fate we all live under: nature.

Publishers Weekly

01/25/2016
Percer’s gripping, poignant second novel (after An Uncommon Education) serves as an unconventional love letter to San Francisco. Max begins his 34th birthday in a melancholy mood; he’s spent much of the past 14 years hung up on his high-school sweetheart, Vashti, who abruptly broke off their engagement to marry someone else. Coincidentally, Vashti, now widowed and back in San Francisco, seeks Max out at the theater where he works to wish him a happy birthday and possibly reconnect. But before they get a proper reunion, the city is hit by a series of earthquakes. Trapped in the rubble of the theater, Max and Vashti spend a harrowing night waiting for rescue and finding closure from the tragedy that tore them apart when they were young. Across town, Stanford geologist Gene is consumed with his need to get from Palo Alto to North Beach and his sick partner—and haunted by the knowledge that he failed to predict this disaster. San Francisco’s unique architecture, diverse neighborhoods, and colorful residents are vividly brought to life. The intertwined love stories in this remarkably drawn setting will keep readers absorbed until the final, tear-jerking moments. (Mar.)

Library Journal

04/15/2016
For a group of near-future San Francisco residents, the Valentine's Day hustle of gift buying and romantic dinner planning is shattered by a pair of massive earthquakes. Stanford seismologist Gene begins a trek through rubble-blocked streets to get to his disabled lover, Franklin, while conductor Max lies trapped and injured in the Masonic temple within arm's reach of Vashti, his former paramour who had come to reconnect with him. Also captured in the auditorium are sisters Ally and Tia, young members of the San Francisco Children's Choir, and Friar Schmuck and Sister Coco of the local community service group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Throughout the tragic night, our players rehash their fractured pasts in flashback and conversation, peppered with chapter prefaces of firsthand accounts of the 1906 earthquake and fire. Triple Pushcart Prize nominee Percer's second novel (after An Uncommon Education) is a tribute to a beautiful but fragile city and its diverse inhabitants. VERDICT Fans of the Golden City should be moved by the author's elegiac prose, but many might wish that the main adult characters and their stories had been as compelling as the setting. The narratives of Tia and Ally stand out as rays of light in the darkness. [See Prepub Alert, 10/15/15.]—Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast

Kirkus Reviews

2016-01-10
Two couples—one united, one long separated—face significant buckling and settling of their emotions when two earthquakes strike San Francisco within an hour. Even if many stories aren't actually love stories, this second novel from poet Percer (An Uncommon Education, 2012) undoubtedly is. Partly the tale of long-ago lovers Max and Vashti, partly that of married couple Eugene and Franklin, it's also a love letter to San Francisco—"the best city America ever had the accidental luck to create"—where the action takes place on, yes, Valentine's Day. Percer connects these and other tales of the heart to a massive seismic event, announced in the novel's opening sentence and then held tantalizingly back while acres of back story are traversed. Will Vashti have the courage to meet up with Max after their bad breakup 14 years earlier? Will Eugene get home in time to celebrate news of a possible promotion with his husband, Franklin, who has multiple sclerosis? Delayed gratification, it turns out, is an abiding element of Percer's storytelling. Not only are the lovescapes of these characters anatomized, but their early family relationships are too, with Percer creating matched triads of parents/work/partner for all. Then, a third of the way in, the tectonic plates finally displace, mayhem ensues, and the characters all find themselves in differently dire circumstances. Percer, however, remains more interested in rehashing the past than moving forward in the present, so while her chapters may switch suspensefully between immediate physical dangers, the focus remains on character, in particular reassessment, repentance, forgiveness, and realignment. This intelligently written tale falls between genres, neither heart-racing disaster drama nor wrenching emotional excavation.

All Stories Are Love Stories: A Novel

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