If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This explores life's rich silences in relationships both acknowledged and covert, and in the unspoken, often treacherous dynamics of families in which so much goes unsaid. Written with maturity and insight, these stories plumb the depths of love, loss and hope. A blind teenager sees the fractures in her parents' marriage more clearly than they can themselves. A mother comes to terms with her adult daughter's infidelity, even as she keeps a disturbing secret of her own. An artist mourns the end of a romance while painting a dying man's portrait. An accident on a trip to Italy and an unexpected connection with a stranger cause a woman to question her lifelong assumptions about herself. These stories are luminous, wise and unerringly humane, and their emotional generosity is all the more moving for Robin Black's restrained and accomplished style.