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Title: a disappointment
Review: This story does not say a lot and what it does say is not said well. The plot is derivative. The characters are hollow and unlikable. The male character's narcissistic self-reflections grate unmercifully. The female in particular is reduced to a hollow caricature. The tone strikes me as somehow false in that the story's "honesty" seems a pose. A good actor does not a good writer make. Forego this book and read the classics. F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night" and "The Beautiful and the Damned" are good places to start. Sprinkle in Hemingway's short stories. Throw in D.H. Lawrence; he wrote obsessively about male/female interactions and did so with great insight and honesty. Add Sam Shepard's plays to your list. These are the real McCoys. Sadly, it seems that Hawke's publisher wants to cash in on his celebrity status, because if this book were written by a non-famous type it would have been promptly rejected.
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