Merce Cardus

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Central to the plot of Deconstructing Infatuation are Helen Hayes, a late thirty-something literary agent living in Manhattan, and Tiziano Conti, a handsome Florentine in town to run the New York Marathon (one would assume, referred as it is as the marathon). Helen has a significant other who lives in his own apartment across town when he is in town which is not often as he is traveling 360 days of the year.

Her roommate, Marlene, comes and goes, show more it would seem, although the reasons for her itinerancy are never explained. It's enough to the author and presumably to the reader that Marlene will be out of town for a month and wants to sublet her bedroom, which she has done in the past with less than satisfactory results. However, this negative experience does not deter the roommates, and the story opens on the pair holding an open house in an attempt to find the right temporary tenant.

Tiziano shoulders his way in as the Johnny-come-lately five minutes before the end of the open house. He is sexy, impudent, and Italian. Helen, rigid, compulsively organized and scheduled with her life properly pigeonholed in all the correct places, dislikes messy, spontaneous Tiziano from the start. Marlene (the one leaving) pushes to accept him, while Helen (the roommate who will actually have to live with him) wants to send him packing. Marlene ultimately gets her way.

Exit Marlene. Commence the devolution of uptight, Type A, perfectly rational and calculating Helen into a spontaneous, irresponsible and ultimately irrational romantic. Tiziano's insidious corrupting influence animal magnetism and existential philosophy gradually overcomes Helen to the point that she decides to throw her entire life away based on a lot of imported Italian beer, a few mornings of burnt bagels, two weeks of flirtation, and two days of passionate wild abandon. And none of it makes any sense—especially not the abrupt and far from satisfying conclusion.

But, that's Ms. Cardus' entire point. She writes in a matter-of-fact almost-clinical fashion doing exactly what she sets out to do: she deconstructs Helen's, if not inexplicable, unexpected and uncharacteristic anticipated renunciation of everything she had spent her entire adult life creating. Without making any moral judgments on their "beautiful interlude", she attempts to find reason in Helen's unreasonable impulse to fling everything over for a guy who may have no intention of progressing the relationship beyond the physical.

Ultimately, Helen knows absolutely nothing about Tiziano except that he excites her physically and makes her dissatisfied with and distrustful of her long-standing relationship with the traveler. Moreover, she never attempts to find out anything about him, which is only one of the inexplicable things she does. Add to that list her unfathomable expectation of finding Tiziano anxiously awaiting her return and ready to run away with her after she has spent a ten-day vacation with her boyfriend, and her grand idea that the best way to hang on to both is to "entertain" one to conceal the fact that the other lurks outside the bedroom door. Is it any wonder that the book ends as it does? . . . and that is how, exactly?

As a reviewer, it's easy to pass judgment on Helen's behavior and rather difficult to keep from finger-wagging. However, I must admit that Ms. Cardus does a good job of bluntly and objectively examining the situation which curiously instills in the reader the very sensibilities she wishes to convey—that of "is that all there is?" It's a question she leaves her protagonist asking and stubbornly refuses to answer. Ms. Cardus gets high marks for an intelligent, concise and well-written work. I believe she accomplished what she set out to do and can be proud of her efforts.

Be that as it may, from my personal perspective, I find the entire situation difficult to fathom, starting from the moment the two women agree to allow a complete and total stranger not only into their lives—or, more to the point, Helen's unprotected life—based solely on the fact that he's attractive and they're tired of looking at candidates. Never mind the potential intimacy issues. How do they know he's not an ax-murderer?

Neither have I ever been able to relate to a lifestyle where casual sex is considered the opening overtures of a relationship and "commitment" means extending that intimacy beyond the physical, i.e., get to know someone beyond their first name. Why bother to find out the unimportant stuff like, I dunno, what they do for a living or if they are married or whether or not they are even someone you want to spend any length of time with at all? Neither do I think that Ms. Cardus was trying to make that point. We seem to look out on two very different worlds. But again, it's a matter of taste.

Also a matter of taste: I skipped over probably six paragraphs total of unnecessary love-making, but it was not too terribly graphic or prevalent. I think she dropped perhaps two F-bombs and a few more OMG-type profanities, but it wasn't anything more than one is exposed to in public and probably a great deal less.

Bottom line: This book is very well-crafted with interesting, likable characters in what I fear are all-too-true-to-life situations. It is emotionally compelling and distancing both at once, which takes skill, and is concise and to the point which is harder still. If you can live with the salacious content (or self-censor), I would recommend this book. If nothing else, it provides a window into how the other half lives. show less

Nitty Gritty
This book is told in Helen's point of view, a woman in her late thirties who is currently residing with her friend Marleen in an apartment complex. The book kicks off when Marleen has to go out of town for a month, so she wants to 'rent' out her bedroom for the time she's gone. So they have many people come in and they all don't seem right, until a very handsome italian man named Tiziano comes in and wants to rent for a month while he's in town from Florence, Italy.
So in the show more beginning, Tiziano and Helen clash of course, but then they begin to talk and have a lot of fun together and become friends. When I first started this book, I was really confused because it is extremely short! I thought maybe the author didn't send me the whole file but it turns out it's more of a novella? So the book was fast paced and didn't waste time with the small stuff. I think I would have liked this book a lot more if it was longer, I found myself very confused throughout the book and didn't know exactly what was going on. Also, the way the characters talked threw me off a bit- like how Helen would say she "desires him" I wouldn't picture someone actually saying that in real life. And the way Tiziano would actually say "Ha, ha, ha" or "Easy!" all the time got a bit annoying.
Even though there was some things wrong with this book, I did enjoy it! I wasn't bored at all throughout the book and read it extremely quick. I thought the plot was interesting, and something you could see happening in real life- instead of all of this 'forbidden love' and 'soul mates'. Helen was just a regular middle aged woman not happy with who she was with, and had this sudden lust for this man she barely knew and acted on it. (Not something I personally would have done, but it does happen. ;P) Also, the reason I only gave it 3 stars was the ending! I won't ruin it, but I wasn't happy with it in my personal opinion. I felt like it was just very random, rushed and didn't give us a full ending of what happened to everyone.

Characters
H e l e n : I thought Helen was alright. She was kind of annoying at times but she grew on me more towards the very end of the book. She was in denial throughout most of the book torwards her current boyfriend, and what was going on between them. She didn't make the best decisions, but nobody's perfect.
T i z i a n o : I feel the same about Tiziano as I do for Helen. Okay, I lied. I didn't like Tiziano as much as I liked Helen. Maybe because of the way he talked when they watched the figure skaters.. I don't know. He was alright, though! :D
M a r k : Mark was Helen's boyfriend of a few years who didn't live with her and was out of town '360 days of the year' according to Helen. Mark wasn't in the book as much but he did play a big part in the it because he was sort of the wall blocking Helen from Tiziano. Helen didn't have the courage to leave Mark even though they both weren't happy, which stopped her from fully being with Tiziano.
E m i l y : Emily was Helen's best friend in the book and who Helen went to for advice, even though she didn't really take it. Emily was probably my favorite character because a few things she said did make me giggle, and she was a true friend to Helen even if she was acting like an idiot.

In All
In all I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars. It had a good plot, very fast paced, and didn't have a dull moment. The only things I didn't appreciate was the dialogue- It seemed fake and kind of awkward, not something you'd imagine being spoken out loud between people. And the length! It was very short, I believe I read this in 30 minutes and wasn't satisfied with the very end. The Characters were likable and you could see where they were coming from at some points, so that was also a plus. Overall, I would recommend this to people who enjoy a short fast sort of love story. (:

This is also posted on my blog :
http://cheerfulreviews.blogspot.com/2012/07/deconstructing-infatuation-by-merce.... show less