New York writer Desmond Sullivan doesn't believe in marriage. His five happy years with his lover Russell haven't fundamentally challenged Desmond's conviction that, at best, true love is "an acute form of tolerance." He's sexually restless, and looking forward to his four-month teaching stint in Boston as an attempt to regain some of his own identity and try to complete the biography he's been writing. Jane Cody, a Boston public television producer, is similarly disenchanted with her marriage to a clumsy, kindly professor of English. Lately, Jane has been meeting her ex-husband Dale for drinks and coffee, although she's well aware that he's a jerk. With so much going wrong in her life, it strikes Jane that she and Desmond could collaborate on a series of documentaries, salvaging both of their foundering work lives.
George and Nina seem like the perfect couple. They share a cozy, cluttered Brooklyn apartment, a taste for impromptu tuna casserole dinners, and a devotion to ballroom dancing lessons at Arthur Murray. They love each other. There's only one hitch: George is gay. And when Nina announces she's pregnant, things get especially complicated. Howard-- Nina's overbearing boyfriend and the baby's father-- wants marriage. Nina wants independence. George will do anything for a little unqualified affection, but is he ready to become an unwed surrogate dad? A touching and hilarious novel about love, friendship, and the many ways of making a family.
The author of the much-loved novels The Object of My Affection and The Easy Way Out is back - with another endearingly disaffected hero, another disastrously dysfunctional family, and new territory: the battleground - and occasional common ground - of fathers and sons. Clyde Carmichael is a hyperobservant, under-achieving teacher at a posh adult ed center. Clyde spends too much time obsessing over Gordon, his ex, devouring biographies in search of a design for living ("It's satisfying to be reminded that the most eventful and interesting lives usually end tragically"), and dodging his family: his maddeningly insecure sister and irascible father, whose days might or might not be numbered. Clyde's on the verge of becoming as aimless as his handsome (and unswervingly straight) roommate, Marcus, a casualty of higher education whose going on the tenth year of his dissertation and his umpteenth doomed relationship. Enter Louise Morris. Clyde's old friend and Marcus's onetime lover is a peripatetic writer and single mother who shows up with Ben, her son, and a neurotic stray dog in tow. The looming question of Ben's paternity is just what's needed to turn up the heat and give full comic play to McCauley's anxious, affectionate, ongoing fascination with the ties that bind - and sometimes strangle - families and friends.
The bestselling author of "The Object of My Affection" and "True Enough" delivers his most compelling and richly observed novel to date with this portrait of one man's search for the holy trinity of modern life -- true love, good sex, and great real estate. Stephen McCauley's new novel is a moving and hilarious chronicle of life in post-traumatic, morally ambiguous America where the desire to do good is constantly being tripped up by the need to feel good. Right now. William Collins is a real estate agent working near Boston. Despite a boom market, his sales figures aren't what they should be, due mostly to the distractions of compulsive ironing and housecleaning binges and his penchant for nightly online cruising for hookups -- "less impersonal than old-fashioned anonymous sex because you exchanged fake names with the person." There's also his struggle to collect the rent from Kumiko Rothberg, his passive-aggressive tenant, and his worries about his best friend, Edward, a flight attendant he's certainly "not" in love with. William has known for some time that his habits are slipping out of control. But he figures that "as long as I acknowledged my behavior was a problem, it wasn't one." When he finally decides to do something about his life, he needs a role model of calm stability. Enter Charlotte O'Malley and Samuel Thompson, wealthy suburbanites looking for the perfect city apartment. "Happy couple," William writes in his notes. "Maybe I can learn something from them." But what he learns challenges his own assumptions about real estate, love, and desire. And what they learn from him might unravel a budding friendship, not to mention a very promising sale. Full ofcrackling dialogue delivered by a stellar ensemble of players, "Alternatives to Sex" is social satire at its very best: A smart, sophisticated, and astonishingly funny look at the way we live now.
Dirk van Gunsteren, 1953 geboren, übersetzte u. a. Jonathan Safran Foer, Colum McCann, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, T. C. Boyle und Oliver Sacks. 2007 erhielt er den Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt-Preis.
