Was it Something I Said? - Hardcover

Block, Valerie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569471096 ISBN 13: 9781569471098

Publisher: Soho Press, 1998

Synopsis

How do two people find love in New York City? Barry and Justine meet on an airplane over LaGuardia airport just before the Christmas holidays. Barry is a food product manager who hasn't had a date in a year. He lives in his parents' old Upper West Side apartment and has taken in a spoiled, rich roommate who has three simultaneous girlfriends but never has the rent. Barry's colleagues at work are all married, so are his friends - and most of them are having children. He really wants to find 'the one'.
Justine is a pretty, smart and ambitious lawyer on the partner track at a hotshot New York mergers and acquisitions firm. She is sick of the dating scene and has had a string of bad luck. Her friends and colleagues keep trying to fix her up, but her patience is running out. She'd rather be home at her apartment on the Upper East Side with her dog, drinking salad dressing for dinner and watching The Sound of Music on the VCR.
These two meet under the most dangerous, absurd and ultimately romantic circumstances. But will they realize that they're made for each other?

About this title

Reviews

Miracles do happen: an urban love story, Manhattan-set, in which the fact that two lovers have everything stacked against them--insanely controlling parents, manic workplaces, and their own confused selves--results in a brilliantly funny and even wise first novel. Like a 30-something Holden Caulfield trapped in a Dilbert-quality job, Barry Cantor can't help putting his foot in his mouth--usually when he's just won his point. Partner--track lawyer Justine Schiff--is his polar opposite: supremely in control, absurdly well-paid, completely type A. But the strain of her extremely public singledom and the effect of the blighted lives she sees around her at her patrician white-shoes law firm leave her wide open to a transformation the night her plane crashes on takeoff at LaGuardia. Bonding with seatmate Barry while throwing up together, Justine soon finds herself with a bed- and soul-mate who talks funny to waiters, leaves his underwear on the floor, and has for a roommate the billionaire's son who once jilted her. The tale unfolds in a New York minute, alternating between the glossy misery of Justine's Wall Street megadeals and Barry's valiant efforts to wrest meaning from selling novelty candies, in scenes that ring true and funny. The result is foreordained, but doesn't detract one whit from the ride--probably because, like a New York Jewish Hepburn and Tracy, Justine and Barry can make an uneventful evening at home crackle with wit and incident. Only the subplot with the billionaire's son eludes a tidy conclusion. From the peculiar angst of the rich and workaholic to the pinball rhythms of America's eternally boyish men, Block has taken the pulse of love in the '90s with verve and panache. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This funny, painfully realistic first novel skewers the New York singles scene in a blow-by-blow account of the on again-off again romance of two lonely thirtysomething professionals. Justine, a driven lawyer, and Barry, a dissatisfied marketing executive, meet in the aftermath of a nonfatal plane crash. In the course of a year, they work through enough problems to sink any relationship. She's a Republican and had an affair with his roommate. He's a liberal whose bad attitude and temper get him fired. Both have dysfunctional families ready to interfere. Block writes with authority. Her fast-paced narrative, perceptive and sympathetic characterizations, and descriptions of everything from Justine's male-dominated law firm to Barry's roommate's juggling three women all ring true. Readers will be rooting for Justine and Barry to vanquish their insecurities and live happily ever after. For popular fiction collections.?Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1569471096
• ISBN 13: 9781569471098
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 359