Man About Town - Hardcover

Merlis, Mark

3.64

158 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007156111 ISBN 13: 9780007156115

Publisher: Harper, 2003

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Joel Lingeman has been set adrift. Until recently, life was 'relative contentedness'; working for Congress, frequenting the Hill club a little too frequently, cooking dinner for two every night and routine sex on Sundays. Now Sam, his lover of fifteen years, has left him for a stunning twenty-three year old and he cannot score a trick in the sleaziest pick-up joint in town. Joel's revulsion for the politics around him has dissipated into mild amusement at the 'social Darwinists' ready to snatch the last cents from the hands of the old and ailing. And he is increasingly obsessed by the different lives he could have led. When a teenage fantasy reasserts itself, the blond haired demi-god his eye once fell upon modelling swimsuits in the back of an old magazine, Joel is overcome by a pervasive sense of loss and embarks on a quest to hunt down 'the Santa Fe boy'. Astutely observed and resonant with dark, sardonic undertones, Man About Town is an unforgettable novel about losing your way, your self-esteem and your security.

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About the Author:

Mark Merlis grew up in Baltimore and attended Wesleyan and Brown Universities. He now lives in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

From Publishers Weekly:

Joel Lingeman, the protagonist of the third novel by Washington insider-cum-novelist Merlis (American Studies), is, at 45, a man in full, with a high-profile job as a health policy adviser to Congress, a long-term lover and a tightly knit circle of like-minded friends. Still, he is unable to avoid the eternal question of "what if?" His mind wanders off medicare and HMOs, drifting back to his high school years, yearning for another chance to correct his juvenile mistakes, to chart a different course in life. Change, however, is thrust upon him when Sam, his lover of 15 years, leaves him for a younger man. Lingeman's world implodes, and he is thrown back into the scene of Washington's gay bars, seeking reaffirmation and companionship. His sudden change of status propels him into an obsession with one of his boyhood fantasies, a model in an ad he saw in a magazine as a child. Lingeman is so engrossed by this ephemeral man that he misses a more obvious and tangible potential lover. Cleverly, Lingeman's career echoes his romantic life, as he finds himself disgusted with the opportunism and cynicism of Washington politics. Merlis's staccato style, stinging and insightful, puts the reader inside Lingeman's head as he treads the fine line between fantasy and reality, between the superficial and the meaningful. Merlis is able to move from describing a certain assistant's dress as one "an organ grinder might have chosen for his monkey" to the deepest contemplations of commitment, couplehood and the importance of candor. He creates a protagonist with broad appeal, proving beyond doubt that the personal is political and vice versa.
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