Description
Book SynopsisNathaniel Piven is a rising star in Brooklyn''s literary scene. After several lean, striving years and an early life as a class-A nerd, he now (to his surprise) has a lucrative book deal, his pick of plum magazine assignments, and the attentions of many desirable women: Juliet, the hotshot business journalist; Elisa, Nate''s gorgeous ex-girlfriend, now friend; Hannah, lively and fun and ''almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice''.
In this twenty-first-century literary enclave, wit and conversation are not at all dead. But is romance? In The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of a sensitive, flawed, modern man to reveal the view of the new world from his garret window, and the view of women from his overactive mind.
Trade ReviewDeeply clever...a writer to watch. -- Jonathan Franzen
With this novel, Waldman has done the heretofore impossible: get at the core of the modern female state through the roiling inner monologue of a man who loves to hate women. Her protagonist is well-meaning, and that may be the most sobering part.
Nate is almost too real. Mark my words: this book will inspire laughter, chills of recognition and flights into lesbianism. -- Lena Dunham
Adelle Waldman’s
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is that most unusual and wondrous of things: a novel that wants to educate our hearts. Beneath her highly graceful and entertaining prose, Waldman has a moral project in mind, she seeks to extend our sympathies and (with great charm) shame us into becoming better versions of ourselves. Her novel is
constantly witty and profound. It is also a reminder that novels can be far more than pleasant diversions, they can be highly sophisticated tools that help us to grow up. -- Alain de Botton
I can't remember the last novel this good about being young and smart and looking for love in the big city. It’s as if one of the top tier nineteenth-century novelists zeroed in their social x-ray eyes onto present-day Brooklyn. I bet untold readers will be squirming with uncomfortable recognition; many more will be thanking Adelle Waldman for this
hilarious, big-hearted, ruthlessly intelligent, and ridiculously well-written novel. -- Charles Bock (author of the bestselling Beautiful Children)
Deliciously funny,
sharply observed,
elegantly told, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is the best debut novel 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 ‘contemporary’ life. With
a pitch-perfect balance of satire and sympathy, reminiscent of Mary McCarthy’s
The Group, Joshua Ferris’
Then We Came to the End, and Jay McInerney’s
Brightness Falls, Adelle Waldman’s voice is nevertheless entirely – and unabashedly – her own. -- Joanna Smith Rakoff (author of A Fortunate Age)
