A one-day read that would bear a re-reading done more closely, but enjoyable, engrossing, thought-provoking and ultimately satisfying short stories about love. From the young, the old, from the unmarried to the already married, from realistic to surreal (Casanova and Mozart), Wickersham’s novel twists of the recurring eponymous phrase adds a “Where’s Waldo” element to these portraits of the difficulties and rewards of love—physical, emotional, and intellectual. Can’t avoid the “WW” aspect of summarizing The News:

1. Burnaby (about to unhappily marry Barbara) to Barbara’s best friend Susanne (still smarting from her husband’s infidelity) referring to his father’s handing him a shell at the childhood beach and saying, “Want to listen to the news from Spain?”
2. “ The News from Spain,” a TV report of bombing in Madrid, is the first line in this story about Rebecca—a divorced bookstore owner who has a passionate affair with Benjamin which ends when he refuses to divorce his wife and she goes back to loyal, reliable, boring Peter—and her mother, Harriet, in a nursing home in Connecticut.
3. “News from Spain” is the phrase written on the blackboard by Mrs. Sturm, the Spanish teacher and wife of the math teacher at the boys’ private school where the narrator (a girl) and Lily Joyce are the only girls. Mrs. Sturm is screwing the preppies, Big Lily is marrying her house boy, Lily Joyce drops out and marries a gas station attendant and the narrator, in her 40’s, now visits the Prado with her husband.
4. “News from Spain” is in a letter from her husband received by a paralyzed professional dancer in New York City. Cared for lovingly by Malcolm, a Black, gay attendant, she deals with grief—loss of body, loss of career, loss of husband who announces his new affair and the question of divorce.
5. “News from Spain” refers to a phone call to Alice 40 years earlier informing her that her race car husband had died in a crash in Barcelona. Related to a would-be biographer, Alice learns of Charlie’s wife’s Liza’s long-term incestuous affair with her cousin David. The mansion owner employers Arch and Marjorie’s relationship and another one .
6. “News from Spain” refers to Johnny’s friends listing his paramour in Europe (you haven’t even heard the news from Spain) to Elona, Johnny’s lover and eternal dupee. Roina, divorced by the unfaithful Count, is a good listener in this modern version of “The Marriage of Figaro.”

7. “News from Spain this week is that Franco is still dead,” used by the narrator in referring to the “usual                    routine” she has adopted with A, a man she works with whom she has fallen in love with. She learns that                he has a mistress in addition to his wife, but still loves her. In the meantime, a parallel story about a                       doctor, a journalist, and FDR’s wife unfolds. Very complex