The Calamity
of  Desire
and Other Storiesby Judith Dancoff

2025 Award Winner for Best Short Story Collection from Next Generation Indie Book Awards - Honorable Mentions Los Angeles and Paris Book Festivals.

Described as "luminous" by Los Angeles Festival of Books judge Diane Smith, this award-winning collection weaves famous works of art with sometimes real, sometimes fictional artists and protagonists, to bring to life famous works of art and explore the boundaries of the human heart. Artists and their works depicted include Auguste Renoir, Diego Velásquez, John Singer Sargent, and Johannes Vermeer, in seven stories and one novella that span the 17th century to the present day. All of the stories in this collection were previously published in well-known journals and "The Calamity of Desire" (the Southern Humanities Review, 2020), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Juli Min, editor of The Shanghai Literary Review and author of Shanghailanders, comments about the collection: "The Calamity of Desire is both timeless and quietly subversive: an essential for any art lover, artist, lover, human."

 
More Reviews

"This gorgeous collection brings to life Foucault's dictum that meaning requires the viewer's inclusion. Readers are folded into classic artworks, transported across time and space. Art lovers, history buffs, storytellers—read this magical book!"

— Nan Cuba, author of Body and Bread, winner of the PEN Southwest Award.

"The Calamity of Desire pulled me like a chocolate assortment. I may know the art [that inspired each story] by name; but then, each story unwraps with dimension, mystery and richness. Rather than seeing a work of art from a frontal POV, Judith Dancoff invites us to do so voyeuristically, through the lens and mirrors of the protagonists who live it. Sensuous, cinematic and historically well-researched, the stories' sensibilities remind me of the movie "Portrait of a Lady on Fire". I thoroughly enjoy Judith's new book and recommend it to anyone who's ever considered themselves a student of art!"

★★★★★ - Amazon Reader

"This is a remarkable collection of stories. In her finely-tuned, sometimes exquisite prose, Dancoff's common theme is that each tale relates in some way to a particular work of art. Mostly they are about the artist/creators. I found every one of them involving, detailed, personal and sometimes heartbreaking. Nothing feels didactic about them, but I learned a lot from an author who clearly has a love and a deep and admiring knowledge of great paintings in history. At the end of each story, I found myself wanting to know more about the artist and the painting and going online to satisfy my continuing curiosity. Really a singular reading experience."

★★★★★ - Goodreads

A debut collection of short fiction by Pushcart-Prize nominated author Judith Dancoff