The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

Men in New York-far outnumbered by women, and with time on their side-sometimes seem to hold all the cards. And it is often accompanied by the suspicion that the man in question is devoting little attention to the matter, perfectly content with his disordered apartment, his soon-to-be-brilliant career, and his sex life, which is as varied and anarchic as his collection of mismatched beer glasses. One of Waldman's great achievements is the way she so thoroughly sublets Nate's head so that we see situations, and especially the women, in his life through Nate's own narrow window, curtained by self-regard.I recognized this female lament I’ve heard it countless times.

But of course they're not, especially the guys, nor are they simply caricatures.

You'd expect that Nate and his smarty-arty friends - who casually quote George Eliot and French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, who busy themselves writing essays on topics like 'Yoga as the New Orientalism,' and who flirt in emails citing Charles Dickens' campaigns against child labor - might be 'better' people somehow. Waldman's main character is a 30-year-old-writer named Nate Piven, a product of, we're told, 'a postfeminist, 1980s childhood and politically correct, 1990s college education.' Educated awareness, however, doesn't translate into enlightened behavior, and that's one of the key themes of Waldman's novel. I inhaled this slim novel now I want to go back and read it again, to savor Waldman's mordant take on work, love and cannibalism among the up-and-coming Brooklyn intelligentsia. I'd still steer clear of the Duck people, but Waldman, who is herself a hip young literary person living in Brooklyn, has written such a crisp, comic novel of manners and ideas about her own tribe that I was completely won over.

Both clans are ingrown and smug, each, in their own way, disdainful of the American mainstream. How?īefore I read Adelle Waldman's brilliant debut novel, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., I had about as much interest in reading about the hip, young literary types who've colonized Brooklyn as I do in watching Duck Dynasty, that reality show about a family of bearded Luddites who live in the Louisiana swamps. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman