Chat - Softcover

Nan McCarthy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201886685 ISBN 13: 9780201886689

Publisher: Peachpit Press, 1996

Synopsis

Chat is the story of two people who "meet" online while cruising one of the world's largest information networks. Bev, a tough-minded book editor who has been logging online for years, cautiously begins corresponding with Maximilian, a flamboyant and restless advertising copywriter who strikes up an e-mail conversation with her. Bev and Max's relationship gradually becomes more intense as the story unfolds entirely through their electronic messages.
Readers cannot resist the temptation to eavesdrop on Bev and Max's intimate correspondence as she slowly becomes less inhibited and he grows more and more fascinated by her. Two people who are at first faceless, ageless, and voiceless come vibrantly alive through their sometimes serious, sometimes entertaining, yet always believable correspondence with each other. A tantalizing adventure, Chat brings romance into the age of technology with some startling results.

About this title

From the Back Cover

This book will appeal to Internet veterans who may have developed their own "virtual relationships," as well as to the millions of people who are fascinated by the goings-on in the world's new online community, but who haven't yet experienced it themselves. CHAT offers readers the irresistable opportunity to eavesdrop on Bev and Max's increasingly intriguing conversations as she becomes less inhibited and he grows more and more facinated by her.

Reviews

McCarthy's isn't the first e-mail epistolary novel (though it was rather newer when she self-published it in 1995), but it is better than most. By clever combinations of e-mail, live chat, emoticons and computer shortcuts, she gives the headstrong-girl-meets-self-sufficient-boy story a refreshing twist. Bev (BevJ@frederic_gerard.com) and Max (Maximilian@miller&morris.com) meet in a chat group called Writer's Forum, after which Max e-mails her, asking about jobs. The married Bev is understandably leery of starting a correspondence with someone she imagines to be yet another loser cyberloon, but soon finds him to be neither a loser nor a loon and, in fact, rather charming. Then comes the computer show, Macworld, which, in this context (and probably only in this context) turns out to be a catalyst in their relationship. The novel begins a little awkwardly, with the computer-literate Bev stopping to explain online acronyms (there is both a glossary and a schematic of emoticons at the book's end) and the writing, perhaps purposefully, never transcends serviceable e-mail patter. Still, McCarthy does convey the freedom of electronic anonymity, and the resulting novel, if slight, is a perfectly enjoyable way to spend a few minutes.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peachpit Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201886685
• ISBN 13: 9780201886689
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 123