He is at once a fading author whose one well received novel is now out-of-print, but he is also a middle aged man trying to hand on, in every way possible. He wants a career, a love life, and the adoration that comes with success in either camp. But as so often the case when you are grasping at straws and not thinking clearly or looking dispassionately at your situation, mistakes are made.
This book may be working in a well-established tradition, but it’s sexier than Richard Russo and more fun than John Updike, whose New England style of angst was always trying to demonize some man’s middel aged restlessness and make it into a spiritual crisis. The book takes place over a few days at an artists conference, one of those gilded summer retreats where hopeful adults of middling talent are taught by writers and painters of fading repute, but it reflects on his previous life and relationships as well. It is funny and smart, but it does ultimately ask two things. What is the making of this man, and then the double entendre of what makes us rich in life. It is quirky and I didn't love it every moment but I did want to know where it was going and where it would land, so I am recommending it.
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