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Loading... An Available Man: A Novel (edition 2012)by Hilma Wolitzer
Work detailsAn Available Man: A Novel by Hilma Wolitzer
 txblaize | Apr 27, 2013 |  This review also appears on my blog: An">http://mswordopolis.blogspot.com/2012/03/available-man-by-wilma-holitzer.html. An Available Man is my favorite kind of novel, and it’s my favorite novel I’ve read this year so far as well: it’s a comedy of manners, it’s very astute about its characters and their interior lives, and it’s beautifully written. The titular available man is Edward Schuyler, a recently widowed biology teacher in his early sixties. His stepchildren and step-daughter-in-law place a personal ad for him in the New York Review of Books, and this book follows his adventures and misadventures in the dating world of a sixty-something man. The story moves between suburban New Jersey and New York City (his home and work bases), and it covers the first three years of life without his beloved wife Bea. The story draws you in from the beginning because it begins with Edward alone and remembering Bea’s struggle with pancreatic cancer as well as their relationship. You also feel sorry for him because he was left at the altar by his first serious partner, Laurel. Wolitzer also draws you in with the details that make the characters feel very vivid: Edward buries the letters responding to the personal ad in the kitchen’s crazy drawer, which is just how this character would describe what I would call a junk drawer. He’s too buttoned-up to call it a junk drawer. There are several delicious set pieces in the story as well: Edward at his first dinner party as a widower and Edward’s semi-disastrous dates with women who responded to his personal ad. Wolitzer has a sense of humor. None of the characters, including the women he meets along the way, are caricatures or flat: Wolitzer clearly has affection for all of her characters, including his needy stepdaughter Julie, Edward’s mother-in-law Gladys, and even the dogwalker Mildred who’s interested in the occult. The family life feels real, and the places Edward inhabits feel real. This is a story about grief, this is a story about the dating lives of widows and widowers, and this is a portrait of marriage. Nothing is easy for these set of characters, but they are interesting and are striving to become more alive, which makes for an interesting read. An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer Ballantine Publication date: January 24, 2012 Source: Publisher via NetGalley (  ) rkreish | Mar 31, 2013 | Could not even finish. (  ) wagon333 | Mar 13, 2013 | I'm not sure what I think of this book. I found the premise interesting and the cover art baffling, but mostly I found that what was purported to be a gradual lifting of bereavement as a widower moved on with his life seemed startlingly quick as more than two years (or was it three years...or four?) was crammed into fewer than 300 pages. The passage of time was jumpy; the seasons passed jerkily and suddenly and the present would often be interrupted by a series of scenes from the recent past. I had trouble figuring out where I was in the course of the action of the book. The character development was a bit lacking, which made the actions of the characters not really make sense to me. Even Edward, from whose point of view we see the story, seems fairly unknowable to me. It's one thing for him to surprise himself, but I think the author ought to know what his motivations are and ought to clue in her audience. Despite these complaints, I enjoyed reading the book overall, and some parts I enjoyed quite a bit. I liked the characters of Gladys and Mildred, both of whom seemed more complex than many of the others. I liked Olga, too, until the second half of the book when she, too, seemed to change too quickly for my taste. I liked her more aloof. I really enjoyed the description of the restoration work on the tapestries, and, unlike his professed interest in birding, I really believed that Edward was interested in this work, too. I wish there'd been more of this, but then, I think I would have enjoyed the book more had it gone deeper than it did in most respects. (  ) ImperfectCJ | Dec 31, 2012 | Widower, Edward Schuyler, meets stereotypical women as he begins to date after his wife, Bea's death. Ed is in his early 60s. He starts off with the sex crazed widow. He moves on to the widow who can't let go of her deceased husband, the 71 year old widow who looks (in the dim lighting) around 60+ due to major cosmetic surgery, the divorcee who reunites with her ex and finally lands his old girl friend/fiancee--the one who left him at the alter. Bea's friends keep trying to set him up. He ultimately falls in love with a person who he disliked in the beginning. This is a mediocre book at best...very predictable, uninspiring and flat. ( ) EdGoldberg | Dec 11, 2012 |
 In the opening lines of Hilma Wolitzer’s wonderful new novel, the recently widowed Edward Schuyler stands in his living room, ironing, when the telephone rings. He picks it up to hear the clamorous, intrusive voice of a female suitor, attempting to break in on his grief. But he’d rather iron the blouses of his deceased wife, Bee, “as a way of reconnecting with her when she was so irrevocably gone” than date any of the women now scurrying in his direction. Bee, on her deathbed, had predicted this fate: “Look at you. They’ll be crawling out of the woodwork.”.... As dark as this material might sound, it isn’t. Wolitzer’s vision of the world, for all its sorrow, is often hilarious and always compassionate. Her novels are social comedies: they may feature jiltings, separations and bereavement, but they tend to have happy endings. As she has demonstrated in earlier books like Summer Reading and The Doctor's Daughter, Wolitzer is a champ at the closely observed, droll novel of manners, while also recognizing that — for both her characters and her readers — there's more at stake than laughs in the situations she depicts. An Available Man chronicles Edward's clumsy adventures in, as one character puts it, "Dating After Death"; but it also goes further emotionally, evoking the swampy stages of grief and the raw loneliness that haunts Edward, as well as all those women circling him.
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RatingAverage: (3.71)
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This is the only book I've read by Hilma Wolitzer, but feel the read was worthy of checking out her other books. (