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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.
Simon and Schuster
April 2006
304 pages
ISBN: 0743224736
Hardcover
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Fiction | Contemporary
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 of crackling 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.
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