Willing: A Novel - Softcover

Spencer, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060760168 ISBN 13: 9780060760168

Publisher: Ecco, 2009

Synopsis

Thirty-seven-year-old freelance writer Avery Jankowsky is devastated when his girlfriend, Deirdre, confesses that she has been having an affair. Beside himself with jealousy and grief, Avery accepts his uncle Ezra's advice—and his tickets to an all-expenses-paid international sex tour. Sensing a white-hot book idea (and a chance to get back at faithless Deirdre), Avery joins a group of mostly wealthy and accomplished travelers on a mad Nordic whirl, descending ever deeper into a world that is equal parts hilarity and nightmare.

From two-time National Book Award finalist Scott Spencer comes a startling tour de force that explores the limits of male restraint, the intoxications of privilege, and the maddening dangers of freedom.

About this title

About the Author:

Scott Spencer is the author of twelve novels, including Endless Love,Waking the Dead, A Ship Made of Paper, and Willing. He has taught at Columbia University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Williams College, the University of Virginia, and at Eastern Correctional Facility as part of the Bard Prison Initiative. He lives in upstate New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

In Spencer's (Endless Love ) witty and perceptive latest, struggling New York writer Avery Jankowsky has a midlife crisis at 37. Weary of his hand-to-mouth existence and obsessed with never being able to afford to buy an apartment, Avery's anxiety intensifies when he discovers that his younger girlfriend, Deirdre, has been unfaithful. His Uncle Ezra offers to help him get back on track by sending him on a high-end sex tour that includes stops in Reykjavik and Oslo, and Avery gets his big idea: write a book about the experience. One fat advance later, his life would seem golden, but Avery has not reckoned with the complex personalities of the men he is traveling with nor with the long-buried conflicts within himself that come bubbling to the surface as the tour goes on. Although some of the plot isn't entirely convincing, the details from moment to moment are rich, captivating and often hilarious, and the description of Reykjavik's atmosphere dead-on. There's not enough plot for a great novel, but Avery is intensely self-aware and intoxicatingly articulate even when his feelings (and actions) are less than savory. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0060760168
• ISBN 13: 9780060760168
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272