Which Brings Me To You

Description

A wonderfully observed novel of modern manners, of contemporary mating and dating, written in alternate chapters by two young writers at the peak of their form. A literary equivalent of Lloyd and Rees' Come Together. Two lonely, lived-in, thirty-somethings. One boring wedding. One heated encounter in a quiet cloakroom. It's not exactly the recipe for love. And John and Jane's time in a cloakroom clearly isn't the beginning of anything real; even they know that. When they manage to pull back, literally, it occurs to them that they might start this whole thing over, properly. They might try getting to know one another first. But they live on opposite sides of the country. So they agree to write. And they do. What follows is a series of traded and shared confessions- of their messy sexual and emotional histories, their first shy, callow relationships, their past errors and their big loves, their flaws and their passions. Each story of a love affair - confessed with striking honesty - reveals the ways in which both Jane and John have grown and grown up, changed and not changed, over the years; the people they hurt, the ones still bruised, the ones that bruised them. Where all of this confession will take them is the burning question behind every letter - one that can only be answered when they meet again, finally, in the flesh... This is a remarkable novel - indeed a tour-de-force - in its extraordinary well-observed insights into the way we live now, of mating and dating in a post-feminist time, of the negotiations between the sexes in the challenging world of equal but different. Written by a man and a woman, it is not only remarkable, it is unique.

Steve Almond is the author of the acclaimed story collection My Life in Heavy Metal. Julianna Baggott is the author of three novels, including the acclaimed bestseller Girl Talk.

Praise for Which Brings me to You: 'From its opening sentence this "novel in confessions" draws you into its intimacy, murmuring huskily in your ear "you know you would have done the same"... So wonderfully written that one is completely seduced... Their exchanges shimmer with a highly intelligent sexual charge... So smart, so tender, so well wrought. It has echoes of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife in its unflinching yet powerfully touching account of the intensities of love and sex. John writes to Jane, "tell me something filthy and lovely and true", and this book, wonderfully, is all those things.' * Daily Express * Praise for Steve Almond 'Steve Almond is remarkably good at depicting women... Will leave you feeling quite wonderful.' Guardian 'Superb and heartfelt - Should be read by all men' The Times Praise for Julianna Baggot 'Divinely written and moving' B magazine 'Baggott's delicious prose drips with detail and poetry.' USA Today