The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.
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Description
Bold, touching, and funny--a debut novel by a brilliant young woman about the coming-of-age of a brilliant young literary man"He was not the kind of guy who disappeared after sleeping with a woman--and certainly not after the condom broke. On the contrary: Nathaniel Piven was a product of a postfeminist 1980s childhood and politically correct, 1990s college education. He had learned all about male privilege. Moreover, he was in possession of a functional and frankly rather clamorous conscience." - From "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P."Nate Piven is a rising star in Brooklyn's literary scene. After several lean and striving years, he has his pick of both magazine assignments and women: Juliet, the hotshot business reporter; Elisa, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend, now friend; and Hannah, "almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice," who is lively fun and holds her own in conversation with his friends.In this 21st-century literary world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. Is romance? Novelist Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of a modern man--who thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment, yet constantly struggles with his own status anxiety, who is drawn to women, yet has a habit of letting them down. With tough-minded intelligence and wry good humor "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." is an absorbing tale of one young man's search for happiness--and an inside look at how he really thinks about women, sex and love.
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Product details
- Hardback | 242 pages
- 147 x 216 x 24mm | 354g
- 16 Jul 2013
- Henry Holt & Company
- United States
- English
- 0805097457
- 9780805097450
- 212,493
Review quote
"Wow. What a psychologically astute, and very, very witty novel--about a young male you would think you might hate (but you don't; or, at least, I didn't), by a young female writer you can't help but love." --Rivka Galchen, author of "Atmospheric Disturbances
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"Novelist Adelle Waldman does a very tricky thing: she succeeds in crossing the gender line, imagining the world from behind the eyes of a male character both sympathetically and unsentimentally. This former young-literary-man-in-Brooklyn found himself cringing in recognition." --William Deresiewicz, author of "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
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"I can't remember the last novel this good about being young and smart and looking for love in the big city. "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." reads as if one of the top tier 19th-century novelists zeroed her social x-ray eyes onto present-moment Brooklyn. Up-and-coming writers and artists everywhere will be squirming with uncomfortable recognition of themselves, their friends, and their psyches; far more readers will be thanking Adelle Waldman for this hilarious, big-hearted, ruthlessly intelligent, and ridiculously well-written novel." --Charles Bock, author of the best-selling novel "Beautiful Children
"
"Bracing and astute. Waldman writes these crisp, smart sentences that are every bit as thoughtful as her characters--people whose relationships founder and flourish in ways that will captivate readers from page one." --Fiona Maazel, author of "Last Last Chance" and "Woke Up Lonely
""Deliciously funny, sharply observed, elegantly told, "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." is the best debut I've encountered in years, the best novel about New York, and the best novel about contemporary manhood and the crazy state of gender roles and just "contemporary" life. With a pitch perfect balance of satire and sympathy, reminiscent of Mary McCarthy's "The Group," Joshua Ferris'
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"
"Novelist Adelle Waldman does a very tricky thing: she succeeds in crossing the gender line, imagining the world from behind the eyes of a male character both sympathetically and unsentimentally. This former young-literary-man-in-Brooklyn found himself cringing in recognition." --William Deresiewicz, author of "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
"
"I can't remember the last novel this good about being young and smart and looking for love in the big city. "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." reads as if one of the top tier 19th-century novelists zeroed her social x-ray eyes onto present-moment Brooklyn. Up-and-coming writers and artists everywhere will be squirming with uncomfortable recognition of themselves, their friends, and their psyches; far more readers will be thanking Adelle Waldman for this hilarious, big-hearted, ruthlessly intelligent, and ridiculously well-written novel." --Charles Bock, author of the best-selling novel "Beautiful Children
"
"Bracing and astute. Waldman writes these crisp, smart sentences that are every bit as thoughtful as her characters--people whose relationships founder and flourish in ways that will captivate readers from page one." --Fiona Maazel, author of "Last Last Chance" and "Woke Up Lonely
""Deliciously funny, sharply observed, elegantly told, "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." is the best debut I've encountered in years, the best novel about New York, and the best novel about contemporary manhood and the crazy state of gender roles and just "contemporary" life. With a pitch perfect balance of satire and sympathy, reminiscent of Mary McCarthy's "The Group," Joshua Ferris'
show more
About Adelle Waldman
Adelle Waldman is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's journalism school. She worked as a reporter at the "New Haven Register" and the "Cleveland Plain Dealer," and wrote a column for the "Wall Street Journal"'s website. Her articles also have appeared in "The New York Times""Book Review," "The New Republic," "Slate," "The Wall Street Journal," and other national publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Our customer reviews
This book was something I looked forward to reading. With reviews calling it "deliciously delightful/cheeky", I expected something light. It's disappointing.
The book started out okay, an awkward encounter with one of Nate's past flings. Then we meet some of Nate's circle and from this point on it felt like the author was using the characters to convey her own thoughts on different political and social issues. I understand that this book supposedly expresses Nate's thought process but those issues have nothing to do with what the book was described to be about. At some point I wasn't even sure if the author remembered the point of the book? It felt like a loose plot to accommodate different tangents.. Nate's "thoughts" weren't particularly engaging either.
Didn't particularly like the writing style. Ie., while having a conversation, a simple question leads to maybe 2 pages of background story before suddenly returning to answer it. At which point the question/point of the rant has been forgotten. The ending was also pretty hastily concluded.
I can understand the points the author was trying to convey, but it simply wasn't what the book was sold to be. I really wished it had been better.show more
by Eileen C.
