Sleepless Nights: The Faults and Failings of Love

is an inquiry into the cultural and psychological forces at work in our most intimate relationships. Romanticized and theorized throughout all ages, love remains the paradigm of human experience, the one aspect of life that could redeem all the suffering and disappointment to which we are otherwise heir. And yet it too often forms part of that very suffering itself. In this daring and reflective book, Stuart Walton invites the reader to check into a love hotel with a difference. Instead of selling rooms by the hour, this one offers a luxurious vacation from everyday reality, but in each of its public areas and in its guestrooms, a different scenario is unfolding that relates to the conduct of romantic liaisons in actuality, their momentary splendors, and the crashing and burning to which so many of them are subject. With help from philosophers and musicians through the ages, we find our way to a clear-sighted and honest assessment of the pitfalls and trapdoors with which all love, however ideally conceived, is furnished.