The Romantic - Hardcover

Saroyan, Aram

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0070548595 ISBN 13: 9780070548596

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1988

Synopsis

A brief affair forces a middle-aged screen writer to reexamine his life and outlook

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Too vague and uncommitted to work as a portrayal of a man's midlife crisis, this meandering novel from the author of Trio is rather a chronicle of midlife disaffection. Entering his 40s with a successful screenwriting career taking wing and a loving family nestled in the Connecticut suburbs, James Redding wanders through the corridors of success with a roving eye. Everywhere he goesa meeting on Park Avenue with an editor, a script conference in Los Angeles, even a secondhand bookstorehe sees women he wants. When he begins an affair wtih the ex-mistress of a movie director, the sex is torrid, but the passion is, not surprisingly, absent. Returning home, he learns that his wife has taken a lover as well, and a double standard governs his reactiona point the novel makes with a thudding lack of subtlety. Saroyan bloats his tale with the protagonist's musings over the excesses of the Reagan era, as well as some literary name-dropping (Redding always totes a copy of Henry Roth's Call It Sleep ) and celebrity cameos (Andy Warhol at the Palladium, Michael Caine at the Russian Tea Room). Even with padding, this is a very slender story.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Relic of the Sixties, 40-year-old James Redding still thinks of women as "full sculptured lips" and "legs that could kill." He is appalled to find that the price of his very recent success is working for younger, sharper editors, agents, and directorsall of them women. Even his artist wife and daughters are getting hard to handle. Redding seeks revenge upon them all in a torrid affair with a bookstore clerk ("long black hair"); then drops her. Redundant expletives, name-dropping, and repetitious sex shore up a boring plot. Saroyan is author of numerous books, including Last Rites ( LJ 10/15/82) , a memoir of his father, William. Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport, N.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0070548595
• ISBN 13: 9780070548596
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 210