The Best a Man Can Get: A Novel of Fatherhood and its Discontents - Hardcover

O'Farrell, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767907132 ISBN 13: 9780767907132

Publisher: Broadway, 2001

Synopsis

The Best a Man Can Get by John O’Farrell is a hilarious and touching debut novel in the seriocomic Nick Hornby tradition that demonstrates why marriage, fatherhood, and maturity don’t always arrive on a synchronized schedule.

Michael Adams is a composer of advertising jingles who shares a flat with three other men in their late twenties. Days are spent lying in bed, playing computer and musical trivia games, and occasionally doing a spot of work. And then, when he feels like it, he crosses the river and goes back to his unsuspecting wife and children.

For Michael is living a double life. He escapes from the exhausting misery of babies by telling his wife he has to pull an all-nighter at work or travel away on business. And while she is valiantly coping on her own, he is just a few miles away in his male paradise, doing all the stupid, pointless, gloriously enjoyable stuff that most men with small children can only dream about. He thinks he can lead this double life indefinitely, until the inevitable slip exposes him and threatens to blow his marriage to kingdom come.

The Best a Man Can Get is a darkly comic confessional that peers deeply (and amusingly) into the soul of the contemporary male, divided between the pull of family and the dream of escape. Graced by a flawless eye for detail and impeccable timing, it offers a generous allotment of both belly laughs and shocks of recognition for men and women alike.

John O’Farrell has finally given readers the sparkling and candid novel that fatherhood needs and deserves.

About this title

Review

Some men are born fathers, while others have fatherhood thrust upon them. The protagonist of John O'Farrell's The Best a Man Can Get belongs indisputably in the latter category. When his first daughter is born, Michael Adams imagines her as the warden of a prison that will permanently deprive him of his youth and freedom. Terrified by his new responsibilities, he regularly escapes to a bachelor pad across the Thames, pretending to be at work. Another child arrives--and with still another on the way, it is only a matter of time before Michael's wife discovers his double life. At that point, he must make a choice between his family and his hedonistic haven.

By turns hilarious and touching, O'Farrell's book delves deeply into the anxieties of modern parenting. Yet the novel is not without empathy for the 21st-century father. After all, it's easy to imagine the lure of a child-proof hideaway, insulated from sleepless nights and dirty diapers. At the same time, Adams often wonders whether "just being tucked up warm and cosy" is really "the best a man can get." With its charming prose and truant protagonist, this first novel is sure to win over even the most reluctant parent. --Greg Bensinger

From the Inside Flap

A hilarious and touching debut novel–in the seriocomic Nick Hornby tradition–that demonstrates why marriage, fatherhood, and maturity don’t always arrive on a synchronized schedule.

Michael Adams is a composer of advertising jingles who shares a flat with three other men in their late twenties. Days are spent lying in bed, playing computer and musical trivia games, and occasionally doing a spot of work. And, when he feels like it, he crosses the river and goes back to his unsuspecting wife and children.

For Michael is living a double life. He escapes from the exhausting misery of babies by telling his wife he has to pull an all-nighter at work or travel away on business. And while she is valiantly coping on her own, he is just a few miles away in his male paradise, doing all the stupid, pointless, gloriously enjoyable stuff that most men with small children can only dream about. He thinks he can lead this double life indefinitely, until the inevitable slip exposes him and threatens to blow his marriage to kingdom come.

The Best a Man Can Get is a darkly comic confessional that peers deeply (and amusingly) into the soul of the contemporary male, divided between the pull of family and the dream of escape. Graced by a flawless eye for detail and impeccable timing, it offers a generous allotment of both belly laughs and shocks of recognition for men and women alike.

John O’Farrell has finally given readers the sparkling and candid novel that fatherhood needs and deserves.

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadway
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0767907132
• ISBN 13: 9780767907132
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272