What do you think?
Rate this book
Do You Love Me or What?
A brilliant collection of short stories by the bestselling, award-winning author of Leaning Towards Infinity, Painted Woman and The Secret Cure
Do You Love Me or What? is a collection of eight sparkling, nuanced short stories from one of Australia’s most celebrated and loved writers. Written in elegant, shimmering prose, Sue’s stories are woven with themes encompassing love, loss and yearning, memory and identity, the desert and water, and people who live on the periphery of society. Her sentences are spare and evocative, yet paint fully realised pictures that speak of the poignant, shared experiences of the nature of relationships, past and present.
Do You Love Me or What? is a collection of eight sparkling, nuanced short stories from one of Australia’s most celebrated and loved writers. Written in elegant, shimmering prose, Sue’s stories are woven with themes encompassing love, loss and yearning, memory and identity, the desert and water, and people who live on the periphery of society. Her sentences are spare and evocative, yet paint fully realised pictures that speak of the poignant, shared experiences of the nature of relationships, past and present.
Hardcover
Published March 1, 2017
2 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Sue Woolfe
13 books17 followersSue Woolfe has worked as a teacher, scriptwriter, TV subtitle editor, documentary maker and cook. She is the author of the bestselling novel about mathematics and motherhood, Leaning Towards Infinity, published in five countries and won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in 1996 and was shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize and the prestigious US TipTree Prize. She re-wrote it for the stage, and it’s been workshopped in New York and produced at the Ensemble, Sydney. It’s currently optioned to an American film producer.
Sue Woolfe’s other works include the novel Painted Woman, published in Australia in 1989 and in translation in France in 2008 (also produced twice as a stage play) and co-authored with Kate Grenville Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written.
After attaining her BA, Sue taught at high schools and TAFE, and then became a journalist for Choice Magazine. Following huge sales of her best-selling textbook, Language and Literature, she bought 16mm film equipment and set up her own editing suite and wrote/produced or directed 44 short documentary films, many specially commissioned, and all of which sold to commercial TV channels or to SBS. Now, at Sydney University, she teaches fiction writing for post-graduates by a revolutionary method she calls “dangerous writing”, and has designed and coordinates a course to highlight the work of those film underdogs, the screenwriters. In this course, local screenwriting celebrities talk about the triumphs and tribulations of the craft.
Sue lives in Sydney with her partner and daughter.
Sue Woolfe’s other works include the novel Painted Woman, published in Australia in 1989 and in translation in France in 2008 (also produced twice as a stage play) and co-authored with Kate Grenville Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written.
After attaining her BA, Sue taught at high schools and TAFE, and then became a journalist for Choice Magazine. Following huge sales of her best-selling textbook, Language and Literature, she bought 16mm film equipment and set up her own editing suite and wrote/produced or directed 44 short documentary films, many specially commissioned, and all of which sold to commercial TV channels or to SBS. Now, at Sydney University, she teaches fiction writing for post-graduates by a revolutionary method she calls “dangerous writing”, and has designed and coordinates a course to highlight the work of those film underdogs, the screenwriters. In this course, local screenwriting celebrities talk about the triumphs and tribulations of the craft.
Sue lives in Sydney with her partner and daughter.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 29, 2017
A wonderful collection of stories exploring themes of longing and yearning. The first three stories are incredibly strong and powerful but the collection suffers due to the next two stories (Shame and Small talk) only to pick right up again with the final three pieces. I loved those six stories so much.
May 3, 2017
Sue Woolfe’s Do You Love Me or What? is a collection of eight superbly written short stories told in varying yet almost poetic tones.
Woolfe’s title story, Do You Love Me or What, is bone-achingly haunting; a tale of risk, lost love, and desperation. In 23 pages, Woolfe gives the reader a cast of characters who are perfectly presented and developed, nuanced, and complete. The story is rich in detail with no aspect of the plot left unexplored or wanting.
Woolfe’s writing is spectacular; her use of language is evocative and exceptionally easy to get lost in. Each and every word serves a purpose and though presented with exceptional delicacy there’s no doubt as to the depth of deliberateness in each word choice. In addition, there is a certain lilt to Woolfe’s prose that further assists the reader to become truly encapsulated in the story.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a beautiful, truly remarkable read.
Woolfe’s title story, Do You Love Me or What, is bone-achingly haunting; a tale of risk, lost love, and desperation. In 23 pages, Woolfe gives the reader a cast of characters who are perfectly presented and developed, nuanced, and complete. The story is rich in detail with no aspect of the plot left unexplored or wanting.
Woolfe’s writing is spectacular; her use of language is evocative and exceptionally easy to get lost in. Each and every word serves a purpose and though presented with exceptional delicacy there’s no doubt as to the depth of deliberateness in each word choice. In addition, there is a certain lilt to Woolfe’s prose that further assists the reader to become truly encapsulated in the story.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a beautiful, truly remarkable read.
June 28, 2021
4 stars.
This was a poignant collection of short stories exploring love in all its forms, in addition to love-adjacent or love-appearing emotions we experience with friends, family, enemies or passers-by.
There were about three stories which seemed a bit lacklustre, obscure, or - to be frank - pretentious. However, the remaining stories all left me with a feeling that I had read a truth reminiscent of my own experiences. I applaud Woolfe for achieving that.
This was a poignant collection of short stories exploring love in all its forms, in addition to love-adjacent or love-appearing emotions we experience with friends, family, enemies or passers-by.
There were about three stories which seemed a bit lacklustre, obscure, or - to be frank - pretentious. However, the remaining stories all left me with a feeling that I had read a truth reminiscent of my own experiences. I applaud Woolfe for achieving that.
May 5, 2017
Good writing...some stories I really enjoyed while others I found a bit obscure. Not quite what I expected
September 6, 2017
‘I’ve never been really sure what friendship is about, and at what point it melts into love.’
Eight short stories. Eight different characters hoping, looking and searching for a place where they each belong and are loved. Or is it nine different characters? In the final story, ‘The List-maker’, there are two women. The unnamed fiction writer from whose personal papers come the extracts which make up the majority of this story, and Professor Amelia Broughton whose article about the author seeks to explain a mystery. Amelia is, for me, the ninth disillusioned character. While this story is in many ways the most intricate and clever of the eight, I found another story became my favourite.
These stories are about disappointments, about (in some cases) opportunities not taken, about overwhelming pasts and near non-existent futures. About lives existed rather than lived. In each case, Ms Woolfe brings a character to life in a setting which seems to have been absent of love, of meaningful connection with others. Sometimes, as in ‘Passport’ it is immediate family. In ‘The Last Taxi Away From Here’ a vulnerable woman is exploited by a cruelly opportunistic man in Florence. She leaves: can she retrieve herself in Australia? I’m left wondering.
The story that moved me the most was the title story. Why? Because I wanted this woman to make different, more sensible choices. I wanted her to realise that she risked losing both of the people she cared about. But she didn’t, and I felt disappointed, helpless and sad. This story grabbed my attention, held it, and still has me wondering.
Each of the stories in this collection made an impact. ‘The Dancer Talks’ and ‘Her Laughter Like a Song of Freedom’ also stand out in my memory. Choices and their consequences became a refrain in my head. Can any of these people find happiness?
These are short stories to make you think, about people and how they connect with each other.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Eight short stories. Eight different characters hoping, looking and searching for a place where they each belong and are loved. Or is it nine different characters? In the final story, ‘The List-maker’, there are two women. The unnamed fiction writer from whose personal papers come the extracts which make up the majority of this story, and Professor Amelia Broughton whose article about the author seeks to explain a mystery. Amelia is, for me, the ninth disillusioned character. While this story is in many ways the most intricate and clever of the eight, I found another story became my favourite.
These stories are about disappointments, about (in some cases) opportunities not taken, about overwhelming pasts and near non-existent futures. About lives existed rather than lived. In each case, Ms Woolfe brings a character to life in a setting which seems to have been absent of love, of meaningful connection with others. Sometimes, as in ‘Passport’ it is immediate family. In ‘The Last Taxi Away From Here’ a vulnerable woman is exploited by a cruelly opportunistic man in Florence. She leaves: can she retrieve herself in Australia? I’m left wondering.
The story that moved me the most was the title story. Why? Because I wanted this woman to make different, more sensible choices. I wanted her to realise that she risked losing both of the people she cared about. But she didn’t, and I felt disappointed, helpless and sad. This story grabbed my attention, held it, and still has me wondering.
Each of the stories in this collection made an impact. ‘The Dancer Talks’ and ‘Her Laughter Like a Song of Freedom’ also stand out in my memory. Choices and their consequences became a refrain in my head. Can any of these people find happiness?
These are short stories to make you think, about people and how they connect with each other.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
December 11, 2017
Some of these stories really get under your skin. By and large they are gentle character studies, full of yearning and skilfully written.
April 27, 2019
I liked it. 🙂
June 21, 2022
I am not happy to say but this collection of short stories were more like scattered, unorganized and entangled traces of writings, rather than to be stories.There was no organic unity that really makes a story but only bleak, gloomy webs of complexities that omiously beckon you to entangle yourself in it. The same dull and drab theme of all the stories. Moreover, the psychological working of all the protagonist in all seven stories was same. Before searching Sue Woolfe I bet she would be scorpion. Characters have no life of their own, it seems they are mere imitation of writers mind.There was no distinction in any of the characters mindset. Means no variety at all.
Moreover, at many places the metaphors and similes used by the author were quite absurd and weird. I don't consider such a writing a story that doesn't satisfy me to the core and not a single story among this collection satisfied me. It was more like puzzle or guessing game that sets your teeth on edge, than to comfort you.
Moreover, at many places the metaphors and similes used by the author were quite absurd and weird. I don't consider such a writing a story that doesn't satisfy me to the core and not a single story among this collection satisfied me. It was more like puzzle or guessing game that sets your teeth on edge, than to comfort you.
April 12, 2017
A very literary collection of short stories about love, loss and relationships.
May 3, 2017
Sue Woolfe's 'Do You Love Me or What?' is a collection of eight superbly written short stories told in varying yet almost poetic tones.
Woolfe's title story, Do You Love Me or What, is bone-achingly haunting; a tale of risk, lost love, and desperation. In 23 pages, Woolfe gives the reader a cast of characters who are perfectly presented and developed, nuanced, and complete. The story is rich in detail with no aspect of the plot left unexplored or wanting.
Woolfe’s writing is spectacular; her use of language is evocative and exceptionally easy to get lost in. Each and every word serves a purpose and though presented with exceptional delicacy there’s no doubt as to the depth of deliberateness in each word choice. In addition, there is a certain lilt to Woolfe’s prose that further assists the reader to become truly encapsulated in the story.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a beautiful, truly remarkable read.
Woolfe's title story, Do You Love Me or What, is bone-achingly haunting; a tale of risk, lost love, and desperation. In 23 pages, Woolfe gives the reader a cast of characters who are perfectly presented and developed, nuanced, and complete. The story is rich in detail with no aspect of the plot left unexplored or wanting.
Woolfe’s writing is spectacular; her use of language is evocative and exceptionally easy to get lost in. Each and every word serves a purpose and though presented with exceptional delicacy there’s no doubt as to the depth of deliberateness in each word choice. In addition, there is a certain lilt to Woolfe’s prose that further assists the reader to become truly encapsulated in the story.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a beautiful, truly remarkable read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews