Love Will Make You Drink and Gamble, Stay Out Late at Night brings a number of Shelly Lowenkopf’s previously published short stories together in a single volume. All the stories revolve around life in Santa Barbara, the oceanside city north of Los Angeles, where people go after they’ve burned out in San Francisco and L.A.—but there’s no safe haven anywhere. Interwoven into Santa Barbara’s picturesque setting, the people in these twelve stories reveal what their hearts and souls encounter in relationships. Their misreadings, mistakes, and misadventures bare what happens to people who love another.

“Shelly Lowenkopf is a gifted, humane story-teller, and ‘Love Will Make You Drink and Gamble, Stay Out Late at Night’ is a delight.” —Aram Saroyan (author of Rancho Mirage and Trio)

“Shelly Lowenkopf’s collection of short stories, Love Will Make You Drink and Gamble, Stay Out Late at Night, is a celebration of the strength, the vulnerability and the absurdity of the human heart. In their need to connect, Lowenkopf’s characters are driven to the extreme: a man falls in love with his best friend’s dog; a waitress tries to understand a hook-up with a pianist by listening to music she doesn’t understand; a professor’s thwarted but hilarious attempt to make sure he won’t die alone. Lowenkopf’s delightful stories will leave the reader nodding and smiling in recognition.” —Melodie Johnson Howe (author of City of Mirrors)

“Shelly Lowenkopf’s short stories breathe gusts of fresh air into the often stuffy literary atmosphere. Witty, urbane, sharply observed, insightful, mordant yet poignant and absolutely entertaining, these stories touch the funny bone as well as the heart. Readers have had to wait too long for this collection. Grab it now.” —Charles Harper Webb (author of Liver, What Things Are Made Of)

“Shelly Lowenkopf is a master of the art of stealth in fiction. His writing draws you in and then, ka-pow! Here comes the sucker punch that flattens you.” —David Gillham (author of City of Women)

Read a sample from Love Will Make You Drink and Gamble, Stay Out at Night by Shelly Lowenkopf