Overview
Harry Silver is ready to try again at living "happily ever after." It won't be easy: not when he has to juggle his wife, his ex-wife, his son, his stepdaughter, his work, and his new wife's fast-growing career. Did Harry commit to marriage to Cyd too soon after his split with Gina? Can you love -- really love -- a child who is not your own? Can you be a good father to a child you only see on the weekends? When Harry meets a woman who makes him question all these things and more, his tangled web becomes even more knotty.A brilliant sequel to the international bestseller Man and Boy, Tony Parsons' Man and Wife is a story about families -- and love -- in the new century, written with his trademark humor, passion, and superb storytelling that have made millions across the globe laugh and cry.
Synopsis
A novel about love and marriage -- about why we fall in love and why we marry, why we stay and why we go. In this brilliant sequel to the internationally bestselling Man and Boy, Tony Parsons reminds us why he is a favorite author in over thirty countries.
Publishers Weekly
Parsons is the author of Man and Boy, a sentimental tale of a savvy London TV producer learning to come to terms with his small son after a divorce. That book was a runaway success in the author's native land and scored a large paperback sale in the U.S.; now Parsons has a new American publisher. He does not, however, have a very new story to tell, and as the title indicates, this is essentially a sequel. Harry Silver is remarried to upwardly mobile caterer Cyd, who also has a child, Peggy, by a previous marriage. It is hard enough for Harry to make friends with Peggy and cope with a wife whose work keeps her out of the house a lot, but he must also keep in touch with his son, Pat, whom former wife Gina is whisking off to the States with her new husband. There are a lot of rather formulaic situations here, and Parsons is determined to milk every situation for a possible tear or two, including Harry's ill-advised romance with a lovely Japanese photographer. What prevents the book from dissolving into pure mush is Parsons's eye for the humor in awkward situations-the supermarket scene in which Peggy blandly makes Harry out to be a child molester is beautifully done-and his nostalgic feeling for an older generation made of sterner stuff: his portrait of Harry's aging mum, battling cancer, is the best part of the book. There's a real writer at work here. (Feb.) Forecast: It's interesting to see issues normally treated in women's fiction from a male point of view, but Parsons's rather self-congratulatory style won't be to all tastes. Atria is sending him on a 10-city tour. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.