Easy Way Out - Softcover

McCauley, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862079021 ISBN 13: 9781862079021

Publisher: Granta Books, 2006

Synopsis

When his brother, Tony, calls to say he has fallen out of love with his fiance+a7e, travel agent Patrick O'Neil finally feels a kinship with his sibling. By the author of The Object of My Affection. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen McCauley is the author of Alternatives to Sex, True Enough, The Man of the House, The Easy Way Out, and The Object of My Affection. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Visit his website at www.stephenmccauley.com.

From Kirkus Reviews

McCauley's funny, engaging, if somewhat meandering, second novel (The Object of My Affection, 1987) explores the dilemma of unfaithful Patrick, who longs to leave his staid lover Arthur even as he signs a mortgage application for a house the two are buying together--a charming Greek Revival cottage bordering a cemetery. Patrick frets about global warming and works as a travel agent in Cambridge, Mass.; Arthur is an even-tempered immigration lawyer whom adoring friends name their children after. Still, Arthur has his faults: ``He wanted to be accepted by me, and everyone else, one hundred percent, even if that meant my sitting quietly in the passenger seat and watching him plow head-on into a sixteen- wheeler.'' Other characters, less interesting and too talky, include Patrick's loud, chain-smoking heterosexual friend Sharon; his unhappily-married parents; older brother Ryan, who lives in the parents' basement and works in the failing family store; younger brother Tony, engaged to one woman and in love with another. Pat is flattered by Tony's incessant phone calls seeking advice, since they'd grown apart after Pat declared he was gay. In Pat's opinion, his parents are ruining his older brother's marriage and pressuring his younger brother into a bad one. One wonders if this is a cautionary tale about interfering too much--or too little. But though tensions build and Pat leaves Arthur, while Tony ties the knot, the effect is one of gentle letdown rather than climax. McCauley's comic timing manifests itself, line by line, but the leisurely pace here fails to deliver the payoff. Still, this light, easy read proves satisfying fare--thanks to deftly drawn characters and their real, if sometimes reluctant, affection for one another. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1862079021
• ISBN 13: 9781862079021
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300