Thursday, January 17, 2013

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

Edward is a middle school science teacher mourning the death of his wife and trying to figure out how at age 62 to live without his love. He irons her shirts because she died with them undone, he tries out a support group, the reawakening of his erections, and dates.


This reads like a really intimate peek into the real life of a man going through this.
This passage from chapter 9 struck me as a good example of the depth of this novel. “So why would anyone choose to pursue Science Guy, a man who ironed women’s blouses for recreation, an aging, balding middle-school teacher with a basement laboratory, to which he’d often retreated to cry like a baby, or to fantasize about cloning his dead wife from the DNA in the hairs still trapped in the bristles of her brush?”


I read a review of this in Entertainment Weekly and I got an ebook copy to read from my local library. I but aside Game of Thrones for it and have no regrets. This was a moving and touching book and well worth reading.

(read June 2013)

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